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Atlanta's Athletic Park was used by Georgia Tech for a brief season in 1894; it temporarily replaced the combined usage of Piedmont Park and Brisbane Park, which served as the home fields for the Yellow Jackets from 1892 to 1904.

Overall, NC State had a record of 0-1 at this field, with their sole game being played as neutral site game.

  * Non-conference games

Atlanta's Athletic Park -- sometimes called Athletic Park II to differentiate it from an earlier park -- was a very short-lived athletic park used by the Southern Association baseball team of the city, the Atlanta Atlantas (later the Crackers) from April 1894 through March 1895. The grounds were built on a long-undeveloped field between Jackson Street and Wheat Street by Atlanta's Consolidated Street Railroad Company, who sponsored the construction of a rail route to the field, in addition to outfitting it with grandstands and fences [1]. The grounds, previously known as the "old circus grounds," had most recently used to hold a big chautauqua celebration in June 1893 before piquing the interest of local baseball magnates in late 1893/early 1894 [2].

At first, the construction of the field stalled due to an injunction from nearby residents, however, a judge ruled in favor of allowing the construction of "the prettiest ball park in the south." Work was completed in just a handful of days, with the first pitch taking place on April 7th, 1894. Just over a month after the park opened, the Conslidated company outfitted the park with a horse race track added electric lights to the field, bright enough so that "there will not be an inch of the track that will be out of sight at any time" [3].

In addition to the Atlantas' baseball games and the horse races, the Georgia Tech football team played their home games in the park in 1894; they might have also played there in 1895, had they fielded a team. Instead, the field hosted a handful of out-of-town games, including an exciting game between Virginia and Vanderbilt, who were in the thick of competing for champion of the South. History was purportedly made at the park that same season, when the UNC's Joel Whitaker is alleged to have made football's first forward pass (illegally) in a desperate attempt to beat Georgia.

By March 1896, however, the the newly-renovated Brisbane Park had reopened, and the Atlantas chose not to renew their contract at Athletic Park; instead, they moved to a new park in the Ponce de Leon area (not, notably, the Ponce de Leon Park -- later Spiller Park -- which opened in 1907, though it may have been a more minor forerunner). By January 1896, the grandstands had been removed, supposedly for a new athletic venue in Ponce de Leon Park, however arrangements stalled, forcing the Atlantas to spend the following season back at Brisbane Park. At this time, the grounds gradually reverted back to their old use: primarily, circus grounds [4].

Because the grounds were so ephemeral, it comes as no surprise that they were not depicted on any known maps. Because of this, we don't know precisely where the were located, though we do know it was somewhere on the premises of the block presided on today by the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Park, bounded by Irwin Street on the north, Boulevard on the east, Old Wheat Street (no longer present on this block, but evident on either side of the property) on the south, and Jackson Street on the west. A church, present on both 1886 and 1895 maps, as well as the first campus of Morris Brown College (northeastern corner of Irwin and Boulevard), may be seen in the background of images from the Virginia-Vanderbilt game, suggesting the football field ran east-to-west on the northeastern portion of the grounds [1] [5].

The entire plot of land remained a popular place for traveling circuses to pitch their tents, becoming called variously either the "old show grounds" or "old circus grounds." And while the carnival dominated the spot's usage for much of the next two decades, some informal athletics took place, among them local club baseball games -- including two baseball fields being erected by 1910 -- as well as a rental by the YMCA for athletic uses. This remained the case untill 1913, when Jack Prince constructed a quarter-mile "motordrome" for motorcycle racing; the roughly 5,000-seat affair, called either the Atlanta Motordrome or Prince's Motordrome, lasted just over a year, and was demolished by the time the Wringling Brothers rolled back around in October 1914 as the sport faced increasing scrutiny over its dangers [6].

A fire of biblical proprtions ripped through in Atlanta in 1917, scorching nearly all the property surrounding the houses, but not the circus grounds. In an incredible twist of fate, the grounds' were next used as the site of Billy Sunday's tabernacle, which hosted the largest revival service in Atlanta history. A special building was constructed on the grounds beginning in September and was sold for scrap just before the New Year. By 1918, circuses were back in business, though the following September the southern half of the grounds were sold to make way for a Whites service station. With businesses having occupied the northwest corner of the grounds since at least 1908 (and by Red Rock Soda through the 1950s), the portions of the park best suited for continued circus action, which continued on unabated, were the northeast and southwest quarteres [7].

While athletic activities likely continued in the late 1920s, they reappear for the first time by 1931, when a boy broke his leg during a football game at the "White Gas Field." And from 1939-1940, wrestling was held at Red Rock Arena, likely on the northern portion of the grounds. Through the mid-1940s, local action took place at a field called either the Boys Club Playground, or the Irwin-Boulevard Field. In 1948, Hope Hill Elementary was built on the northeastern corner of the lot; it's worth noting that I've found no reports of circuses or athletic events after the school's construction. It's unclear to me whether the southwest plot was ever developed. If it was, this was demolished by 1975, when work began on the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Park, which occupies the grounds to this day [8].

Pictures of Athletic Park