Davis Field was used by South Carolina from c. 1897-1925; it replaced their usage of the (old) South Carolina State Fair Grounds and was replaced by Melton Field.

Overall, NC State had a record of 0-2 at this field, losing the sole game they played as comference members.

  * Non-conference games

It's not entirely clear when the field which is now remembered as Davis Field was first used, though it could have been as early as 1868, when the "parade ground, south of the campus" was used for a baseball game involving "the Federal garrison." It's worth noting that "the ground now the site of the athletic park" (in 1916) was retained by Federal troops in the late 1860s, indirectly lending plausibility to the fact that this ground hosted the aforementioned game [1] [2]. Aside from this unconfirmed athletic action, it saw no formal athletic use, operating as a farm in the 1880s [18].

The first time lands known definitively to be College Park (often, "the college's park" or field) entered the news was in 1897, and that year, the field entered the news with a bang: it bore witness to a conflict between South Carolina students and the local militia which devolved into a fairly major political scandal. It's not exactly clear what all went down that June day, but the gist of things is that after two local militias -- the Governor's Guards and the Richland Volunteers -- presented themselves for inspection on the college green ("the place they have been inspected for many years"), a fight erupted between them, students, and the police. The whole trouble was largely caused because commanding officer General J. Gary Watts had originally received permission to use the grounds, but was forced to postpone the event. After the postponement, he did not receive additional permission for the new date, assuming his exercises would still be permitted.

The fight likely wouldn't have broken out at all if not for the fact that a baseball game between USC students and a local team called the Independents was taking place on the same field as the military exercises. Notably, while the field was well-established as a parade ground, it was also well-known for being used as a baseball diamond -- so much so that president James Woodrow asked the military men to keep their drills towards the eastern part of the field, "so as to keep from roughing the part specially used by the ball players." The game, for one reason or another, did not pause while the troops performed their drills; this wasn't a problem until the location of game and the drills began overlapping, at which time the spectators and players were ordered to move by the military. Apparently, they did not, and the fight broke out. In the melee, Professor R. Means Davis, for whom the field was later named, was hit across the head [3].

In what I'm sure was an unrelated measure, the following spring the venue took a step towards becoming a legitimate athletic field when professor Francis Horton Colcock began the process of raising funds to enclose the field with a fence. After almost a year, $600 (almost $22,000 in 2023) was raised (half paid by the students, half paid by private sources) and the fence was completed by the spring of 1899 [4] [5]. In addition to the 8-foot fence, the field was given a new 1,000-person grandstand, located along Green Street [6]. In 1905, the field was renamed to honor Professor R. Means Davis, who passed unexpectedly on March 13th, 1904. The field was renamed in his honor before the 1905 baseball season [7]. The field was not named, as is sometimes claimed, for one-time football assistant and Professor LeConte Davis, or, even more spuriously, Confederate president Jefferson Davis [8] [9].

In 1915, the field was outfitted with new grandstands and fencing after the old structures were swept away in a hurricane the previous July [10]. The new grandstand was built considerably larger than the old one, but was made more spacious, and as such only sat 1,200 -- just 200 more spectators than before [11]. Movable bleacher seating, accounting for another 800 persons, was also made; it was designed so it could be moved for football and baseball layouts. During this time, a new fence was built, and the track was also moved.

The field saw continued use for football until it was supplanted by the construction of Melton Field in 1926; at that time, it became primarily a baseball venue. It was used as South Carolina's main baseball facility until the late 1940s/early 1950s, when they started playing with increasing frequency at the nearby Veterans Hospital Field; their last baseball game on Davis Field appears to have taken place in 1952 [12]. The field's stands were torn down in 1942 with no definite plans to replace them; it appears to have taken until 1947 for that to happen, at which time they were replaced with bleacher-type seats. A capacity for this configuration has not been found [13]. No bleachers or seats were shown on the 1950 edition of the Sanborn fire map [19]. Russell House Library was built on much of the field in 1955, but intramural athletics continued to take place on the field through about 1965, when the building was expanded, bisecting the remaining field in two.

Pictures of Davis Field