When Trinity College (now Duke University) moved from Randolph County to Durham in 1892, Trinity Park became their home athletic venue. Though it was partially replaced by Hanes Park II about 1911, it remained in sporadic use until 1925, when it was demolished.

Overall, NC State had a record of 0-2 at this field, losing once to Trinity and once in a neutral-site game against Oxford, North Carolina's Horner Military School.

  * Non-conference games

Though the grounds which formed Trinity Park are now primarily remembered as Duke's first home athletic field in Durham, their original use was as a horse race track. The former Baldy Nichols Farm was purchased by W. T. Blackwell about 1881 as a practice race track for himself and his brother, J. W. "Buck" Blackwell, an early tobacconist associated with the Bull Durham brand. Both avid fans of the equine sport, the brothers developed the grounds for their own personal training and use, and developed the farm into a horse training facility some time after their purchase around 1881.

The reputation of their track's quality soon spread, and by late 1884, it was announced the track would be developed into a commercial lot, called Blackwell's Park (or Race Track). Reportedly "the best and fastest track in the state" (surpassing even that of the State Fair Grounds), the half-mile track featured a roughly 1,000 person grandstand along the southern portion of the western straightaway and stables to the northwest side, near the area marked "Trinity Park School" on the Sanborn map. The entire park reportedly cost him over $25,000 (over $813,000 in 2025) in personal expenditure.

Though the park was said to be immensely popular among the sporting gentry of the day, in 1888, W. T. Blackwell was bankrupted after the failure of the Bank of Durham and transferred the land to Trinity graduate Julian Carr to recoup his debts. Carr in turn deeded it to his alma mater, who had been publicly searching for a new home for some time. Upon its purchase in 1890, Rev. L. L. Nash, a Methodist pastor of regional renown, described the grounds as "one of the finest pieces of property in the state." He went on to appluad the "fine drive made for a track to try the speed of horses," noting that "within this circle is the finest grounds for athletic sports to be found anywhere" [1] [2] [3].

Before the Methodist school could even fully uproot, the campus was renamed Trinity Park, and held the first recorded baseball game (between the colored teams of Hillsboro and Durham) in August 1891. The following November, when UNC and Duke's football teams met in Durham, local papers reminded readers that the home game would be held at "the Trinity athletic grounds -- otherwise known as the Buck Blackwell race track." To make the field their own, Trinity put the gridiron smack dab in the center of the track, just as Nash had suggested [2] [5].

Though initially in the center of the loop (which was utilized for track events), the athletic field shifted northward in the Fall of 1898 to fit in the northern bend of the track. The diamond was rotated to face due south, with home plate nearly abutting the bend; the old Blackwell grandstand also made the journey over to the northern side of the field. The primary reason for this move was because the campus was going through a major physical renovation, thanks to a major donation by Benjamin Newton Duke. The change was made doubly possible because Trinity's football program had been waylaid since 1895, meaning the grounds didn't need to host spectators for the more space-intensive football field. The old grandstand was demolished and the wood used to build Angier Gymnasium ("The Ark").

When the grounds moved, they were also enclosed, possibly for the first time. Shortly after the move, starting in June 1901, it was ordered that the field be renamed Hanes Field in honor of the school's standout athlete Pleasant Huber Hanes, who graduated in 1900. Though there were a handful of news reports indicating the name change, as well as a 1902 campus map, most publications continued to refer to the grounds as Trinity Park. Though infrequently used, I will refer to it as Hanes Field I to differentiate it from the more enduring Hanes Field which followed [6] [9].

Growth of the college slowly engendered a setting where, despite the perfection of the grounds, college officials began looking to move their athletic events elsewhere. "The present situation of the athletic field," wrote an editor for Trinity Collegian, "is inconvenient and somewhat mars the beauty of the campus." On top of that, the building layout around the field was considered inefficient and unsightly due to their offset nature. Promises of a move came as early as 1906, but were repeatedly delayed until 1910-11, when a massive building campaign was undertaken. In the course of work, a new athletic field, Hanes Park II, opened just west of the original grounds, leaving the old park as an open green space. Work lagged slightly, but grading and drainage was eventually completed in late 1911 [7].

For various (mostly construction-related) reasons, however, Hanes Field I remained the primary athletic grounds at Trinity for several more years. It was not until the Spring of 1914 that the field was finally made ready for athletic usage. Plans to disassemble the older field's grandstand and move it to the new site were discussed, though it's unclear if they actually transpired. And though major athletic events mostly shifted to the latter field, the field remained and continued to host sporadic events until 1925 (as evidenced by aerial photos below), when further campus development sounded the venue's final death knell. A spur railroad track was run straight through the heart of campus to assist in the demolition work. Eleven buildings totaling over $4 million (over $72 million in 2025) were constructed in the vicinity from then through 1928; the old buildings were dismantled and moved piece-by-piece to Kittrell College, a historically-black college the Duke family supported [2] [8].

 

Pictures of Trinity Park