Beaver Stadium – stadium description

History of this stadium is one of the rare cases in which the opening took place in a different place than the stadium stands currently. Initially Beaver Field was placed 1 mile west of its current spot, back in 1909. Built with wooden stands, later replaced by steel structure able to hold 30,000 people.

And it’s that steel structure that was relocated in 1959 and reopened in the north-eastern end of Pennsylvania State University Campus in 1960, where it stands today. The operation was combined with expansion by 16,000 and when the ground was reopened with exactly 46,284 capacity.  

But Penn State football has long tradition of demand exceeding capacity and so further expansions were quite frequent. By 1972 it was already 57,000 and over 60,000 in 1976.

To that point the stadium was multi-use, also offering a running track. But in 1978 a stunning operation was carried out. The track was removed, while all existing stands cut into smaller sections and lifter hydraulically (!) to make room for new lower rows replacing the field. This brought 16,000 new places for fans, but was still not enough.

In 1980 it was already beyond the 80,000-mark, though it wasn’t until 1984 that the stadium had floodlights added. Interestingly at that point all stands were still in a single tier. That changed with a new north upper deck of over 10,000 (1991) and a similar, but double-tiered south upper deck for 11,500 people (2001). That expansion also saw 60 skyboxes added atop the highest eastern stand, which even without them has 112 rows!

Ever since its relocation in 1960, the stadium has been growing every decade and its shape is constantly changing. One thing constant about it is the name Beaver (though changed from Field to Stadium), celebrating James A. Beaver, Civil War veteran, governor and one of the creators of current Penn State.