Mishawaka High School's Steele Stadium: From Great Depression to Tradition

In this episode, our listeners and I learn all about how a mid 1930s Great Depression era program created by President Roosevelt’s administration to provide jobs to the unemployed, was used to build a local high school football stadium that on Friday nights 80 plus years later still fills an entire residential neighborhood up with the sounds of a school band playing, helmets and pads crashing into each other, and rabid Mishawaka Cavemen fans cheering on their Maroon and White.

Mishawaka High School’s Steele Stadium is a prime historic example of exactly what the Great Depression era program titled, Works Progress Administration, or WPA for short, intended. 

In Mishawaka historian Pete DeKever’s book titled: Hidden History of Mishawaka, there is a chapter within titled “Mishawaka’s Battleground: Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of Steele Stadium’s WPA Bleachers.”  With football season on the horizon and the passion that I know the Mishawaka fans display, I knew that I wanted to share this story.  

In this episode, I meet with Pete and we learn all about why Mishawaka High School’s Steele Stadium is so beloved by, literally, generations students, former players, and Mishawaka residents.

Listen to the episode first, then head to 121 S. Main St. in Mishawaka and check out the museum! All for the price of a pack of gum and a bag of chips!

Be sure to check out next week's episode as I meet with Mishawaka High School Head Football Coach Keith Kinder.  We had great time meeting in his office, right in the bowels of historic Steele Stadium. 

Visit the Mishawaka Historical Museum's Website: https://mishawakamuseum.org

Or check them out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mishawakamuseum

Purchase Pete DeKever's book, The Hidden History of Mishawaka, here: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-History-Mishawaka-Peter-Kever/dp/1540250288

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