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Historic place

Cotton Bowl

1300 Robert B Cullum Blvd, Dallas, TX

Built as Fair Park Stadium in 1930, renamed the Cotton Bowl in 1936, and home to the early Dallas Cowboys.

📅 1930–present🏛️ StadiumStill here
Open on the mapSlide back to 1930

The story

The stadium opened on October 26, 1930, as Fair Park Stadium on the State Fair of Texas grounds, and was renamed the Cotton Bowl in 1936. It originally seated 45,507. A second deck was added in 1948 and the east side was double-decked in 1949. AstroTurf covered the field from 1970 to 1993.

The Cotton Bowl Classic was played there for its first 73 games, from 1937 to 2009. The Dallas Cowboys played there from 1960 to 1971, and it hosted the 1966 NFL Championship Game between the Cowboys and Packers. Elvis Presley played there in 1956, and it hosted six matches of the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 2020 NHL Winter Classic. The city announced a roughly $140 million renovation in December 2023.

What's There Now

It is still in use, hosting the Red River Rivalry and other events.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Record attendance is 96,009, set at the 2009 Texas-Oklahoma game.
The Texxas Jam concerts ran there from 1978 to 1988.
The 2020 NHL Winter Classic drew 85,630 fans.

Nearby history

Sons of Hermann Hall

3414 Elm St · 1.6 km away
A German fraternal lodge on Elm Street with a dance hall and bowling alley that later gave older roots musicians a stage

The Bomb Factory

2713 Canton St · 2.0 km away
A Henry Ford assembly plant that built wartime jeeps and practice bombs, then hosted Phish, Nine Inch Nails and the firs

Adair's Saloon

2624 Commerce St · 2.1 km away
A hamburger-and-jukebox bar that started on Cedar Springs in 1963 and moved to Deep Ellum in 1983, still with free live

Trees

2709 Elm St · 2.1 km away
A Deep Ellum club named for its trunk-like support beams, where Nirvana's 1991 show ended in a scuffle with security.

Vitagraph / Warner Bros. building (Robert Johnson sessions)

508 Park Ave · 2.8 km away
In a third-floor storage room at 508 Park Avenue, Robert Johnson recorded 13 songs in June 1937, including Hell Hound on

Old Dallas Central Library

1954 Commerce St · 2.9 km away
A George Dahl library that replaced the 1901 Carnegie building and later became the Dallas Morning News headquarters.

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Bowl_(stadium)