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Most of Furman Bisher’s work between two covers has been collections of columns or anecdotes with only three full-length books I have been able to find. One about the Masters, one about Arnold Palmer and Miracle in Atlanta (1966) which came out just as Atlanta became the first city to premier an NFL team the same year as an MLB team.

I knew bits and pieces of the machinations which brought the Braves here: from Ivan Allen Jr’s Notes from the Sixties I knew about Citizens & Southern Bank’s president Mills B. Lane fronting the money and that the stadium came before a team had committed. But I didn’t realize what a character Lane was (there should be a biography of him!) or just how many deals were close but fell apart. Must of been very stressful for a mayor who promised a new stadium and pro sports.

Lane’s cylindrical C and S Tower matches the giant circle of Atlanta Stadium
In one interesting tidbit, Bisher mentioned a slightly earlier attempt to snag an NFL franchise. A “kitchenware and dime-store novelties salesman” named Bill McCane built a stadium out in the sticks of DeKalb County. He purchased the land from a chicken farmer and dug an enormous hole, installed borrowed bleachers from a friend in Houston and called it America Field.

Two exhibition games were played before they pulled the plug on the sub-standard stadium: Cowboys vs Raiders on August 4, 1962 and Oilers vs Broncos one week later. Soon after, the company that loaned McCane the bleachers came to repossess them and NFL dreams shifted to Atlanta.

Anybody know where this America Field actually was?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 1:37 am and is filed under Looking at the Past. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.