Pratt Field Grandstand (c. 1910)

This lantern slide, “Pratt Field Grandstand (c. 1910),” shows twenty men sitting in the completed grandstand at the International YMCA Training School’s Pratt Field. These men built the grandstand, and many are holding carpentry tools.Herbert L. Pratt donated Pratt Field. Originally, the athletic grounds consisted of a quarter-mile track, a 220 yard straightaway (twenty-four feet wide), eleven runaways and pits for jumping and vaulting, seven tennis courts, a football field, and a baseball diamond. An eight-foot high reinforced concrete fence surrounded the field. The entrances were designed by Edward Lippincourt Tilton, who also designed Judd Gymnasium and the Marsh Memorial Building. The International YMCA Training School is now known as Springfield College.A facsimile of this image was found with an SC number (SC18890) and a note saying that it was scanned from a glass negative. However, no glass negative can be found and the facsimile is identical to the lantern slide. We do not know whether the facsimile was made from the lantern slide or from a glass negative that is now missing. The SC file was not large enough to justify keeping and was discarded in January 2014