Wade Municipal Stadium

Main entrance to Wade Municipal Stadium, Aug-2006.

The seating bowl, from the third-base picnic area.

The playing field has since been replaced with artificial turf.

• Location: Superior Avenue at 34th Street, Duluth, Minn. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 1941 as Municipal Stadium
• Additional names: Wade Municipal Stadium (1954)
• Home team: Duluth Dukes (1941-55), Duluth-Superior Dukes (1956-70), Northern League (old); Duluth-Superior Dukes, Northern League (independent) (1993-2002)
• Capacity: 5,000

One of the last parks built with the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, it used bricks that were recovered when Grand Avenue, which runs within a block of the park, was repaved. In a 2015 renovation, an outfield wall was shored up and artificial turf was added.

In 1954, the ballpark was dedicated in memory of Frank Wade, who died in 1953. Wade owned the Duluth Dukes of the Northern League from 1933 until 1951, and had helped to resurrect the league as a functioning entity in 1933 after a previous Northern League had folded during the first World War. The Dukes team merged with its rival across the St. Louis River, the Superior (Wis.) Blues, in 1956 and retained the Dukes name.

The independent league Dukes moved to Kansas City, Kan., for the 2003 season.