Lynchburg's City Stadium was used by Lynchburg College from 1917-1925, as well as Liberty University from 1973-1988. The former team used the venue for the majority of the existence of their football program, which disbanded after the 1931 season; the latter team played its inaugural season in the venue, but moved to on-campus Williams Stadium in 1989.

NC State has had one game scheduled at the field, but the match was canceled by Washington & Lee faculty less than a week before the anticipated kickoff due to a high rate of injury among the Lexington boys.

  * Non-conference games

The first use of the grounds now known as Lynchburg's City Stadium was in 1894, when the Lynchburg Fair Association purchased the land from Robert T. Craighill to replace their old lot at nearby Miller Park. Before this, the main athletic venue in the area was known as the baseball grounds at Rivermont. Located just to the north of old City Park (later Miller Park -- the former fairgrounds' site), local sports had been taking place there since at least the mid-1880s, if not sooner. College football first occurred on these grounds as early as 1896, when Virginia Tech and Hampden-Sydney met on the grounds [1]. Construction to the general venue began in the Spring, and work on the half-mile horse racetrack in May. The grandstand, located on the south side of the track and measuring 195 feet long by 34 feet wide, the unit sat about 2,000 persons and held rooms for exhibits beneath it. Everything was completed in time for that year's fair, which started October 2nd. The event was said to be among the most successful in the city's history [2].

Though equestrian activities took place on these grounds, the Rivermont park remained the primary athletic venue. This began to change in 1905, when the grounds were improved in a variety of ways: in addition to the covering and enlargement of the grandstand (to 2,500 seats), the racetrack was leveled, the entrances improved, and an athletic field built in the grounds inside the track. Because of the massive improvements to the rest of the grounds, work on the athletic field was delayed until the following spring. Owners of the Shoemakers, a local minor league baseball team, determined that if home plate could be located on the racetrack, the existing grandstand would be sufficient seating. The grounds opened in April 1906, playing host to Lynchburg's first pro-level baseball team since the 1894-1896. In addition to the Shoemakers, it was the intention of local promoters to attract high school- and college-level football and baseball [3].

The Fair Grounds remained Lynchburg's main athletic hub until 1926, when the city built Municipal Athletic Park (later more frequently called City Stadium; not to be confused with the stadium built 1938-1939, described later) was built about 2 miles east, at Court and 12th Streets, on the site of a former dump. The move was one city council members had been eyeing since at least 1921, hoping that bringing athletics "closer to the heart of the city" would "stimulate interest" and, as Lynchburg College president Dr. John T. T. Hundley put it, "allow more people to witness games with less trouble." Though not mentioned by name, Dr. Hundley was likely singling out the distance of the Fairgrounds from the city center. Further, the Fair Grounds were notably rural in character: a hardy grove of trees remained a feature of the track's infield (and the gridiron's south endzone) through the 1920s, while a barbed wire fence located adjacent to the field interfered with play on at least one instance.

The move proved imprudent: first and foremost, the grounds were too small to support baseball, forcing the improvement of other existing local venues. The downtown venue also proved to be more susceptible to fence hoppers. Despite this, however, the 8,000-person plant was, however, ample enough to hold the attendees for most local action: many fans opted to watch games for free from nearby rooftops. And regrettably, that was not where the problems stopped as, after less than a decade in service, the stands were in disrepair because the city was disinterested in spending money on the venue.

In 1935, all of the wooden stands were torn down after most of them had been condemned; salvageable wood was used for patching the stadium fence, repairing the city barn, and kindling, in that order. They were replaced with bleachers borrowed from Miller Park and supplemented with seats from the city Armory, allowing a scant 1,200 or 1,800 seats, respectively; the replacement stadium was lambasted as "a disgrace to the city" by councilman Walker Pettyjohn, and derided as "almost devoid of any modern conveniences for spectators" by a newspaper columnist. To make matters worse, a star Lynchburg High School player severely injured his leg on the steel chairs placed along the sidelines.

Lynchburg immediately began searching for ways to fix its downtown mistake. Knowing they couldn't conscionably return to their municipal stadium, seats were removed from City Stadium at the close of the 1935 football season. For a time, it seemed the City of Seven Hills would remain without a football field as deliberations on where to move extended into the Spring and then the Summer. Finally, the decision was made to return to the old Fairgrounds, with the hope that the grounds could eventually be improved with WPA assistance. The repudiated old City Stadium was used but once in 1936, and that only because the Fairgrounds were overrun with equipment from an outdoor play that was delayed due to rain. It was then torn down and converted into a parking lot in 1937 [4] [5].

The decision to pick the Fairgrounds as an athletic hub was logical for a few reasons: first and foremost, the old Lynchburg Interstate Fair had ceased operations in 1931; though it was succeeded by an Agricultural Fair, the latter event was considerably more minor in scope. Secondly, the existing grandstand had remained in good enough shape to be made the main seating for football and baseball fields once the space in front of them was leveled into a gridiron; temporary bleachers were also brought in to supplement available patronage. Finally, one of the several existing buildings on the grounds could be renovated as a locker room for less money than building a new structure from scratch. A group of 30 men (including 10 convicts) started work on the stop-gap stadium on September 17th and completed their work by September 19th, in time for a football game between E. C. Glass and South Boston [5] [6].

Early hopes were that the a combination football-baseball unit would be ready by the 1937 season, with preliminary plans calling for 4,900-person steel stands with brick dressing rooms beneath them on the southeast corner of the property (facing northwest), parallel to Fort Street. Though the initial plans were rejected by the WPA in November 1936, minor site development work (such as roadway improvements and the construction of various outbuildings) resumed from 1937-1938 while funding and design plans were finalized. That came to fruition in March 1939, when plans to construct separate venues for the grounds' two main sports was approved. It was decided to build the football stadium's stands into dirt embankments, while the baseball diamond would have steel bleachers and a central concrete grandstand. After three months of work, concrete work on both plants started in June. The football stands could hold up to 15,000 persons when they were first completed, while the baseball stadium held 4,500 persons [6].

The $160,000 (about $3.6 million in 2024) stadium has scarcely been updated since its completion, in particular on the football side of things. A 2012 study by VMDO Architects for the City of Lynchburg concluded that the football stadium has been left relatively untouched since its completion over 7 decades ago. This is unsurprising: Lynchburg's bid to become a revitalized neutral site location was stymied by World War II and the shuttering of Lynchburg College's football program in 1932, citing "the present camouflaged commercialized features" of football. Besides the historic Virginia Tech-Washington & Lee matchup returning for 8 meetings between 1939 and 1949 and a smattering of VMI games (largely between 1940 and 1945), the Hill City failed to draw many major college games, leaving the football stadium primarily the domain of the high schools or smaller colleges.

The baseball stadium, on the other hand, has received periodic updates, if only sparingly, thanks to the home-team Lynchburg Hillcats of the Carolina League. In 1981, the old clubhouse (which had been located over 100 yards away, at the north end of the football field) was torn down and replaced with a modern room located between the football field and the 3rd baseline. Despite this, the aging venue continued to draw ire from the home team and visitors alike: many players considered the lights to be too dim for night games, the outfield had a definite cant to it, and the guest clubhouse was not air conditioned. Oh, and apparently, there was a problem with gnats: "The bugs get Pterodactyl size," joked outfielder Jody Gerut.

Around the turn of the century, the aging venue was blamed for poor attendance at home games played by the home tennants. Outfielder Corey Pointer did not mince words when he said the flagging fan-support and facilities could "be a motivational thing," elaborating that "If I can go in and play good, then I can get out of here." The situation was especially dire since several Carolina League teams had newly built or renovated stadia, while City Stadium was then, and remains now, the oldest stadium in the circuit, and among the oldest in Minor League Baseball. The Mets, who then owned the Hillcats, threatened to relocate the team if improvements weren't made [7].

Ahead of the 2004 season, those renovations were enacted at a cost of $6.5 million (just over $11 million in 2024). Work had begun back in 2002, with half of the grandstand being closed at a time while repairs and renovations were made to the other wise, but were bogged down after record rates of rain and snow fell on the site. Changes predominanrly focused on adding eight skyboxes to the stadium, making all of the seats chairback-style, enlarging the bathroom facilities, and increasing the dugout sizes, which had fallen below league requirements. The revamped stadium, which seats 4,000 persons, was dubbed Calvin Falwell Field in honor of long-time Lynchburg Baseball Corporation president Calvin Falwell, cousin of Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell. It was renamed Bank of the James Stadium in March 2020 after a naming rights contract was reached with the Lynchburg-based regional bank [8].

Pictures of City Stadium