Some of my favorite childhood memories growing up in central Arkansas was attending Arkansas Traveler baseball games at Ray Winder Field in Little Rock. To this day, I can close my eyes and picture the old field, smell the popcorn and hear the notes from the pipe organ that was played at the games.
Ray Winder Field was the longtime home of the minor league baseball team first known as the Little Rock Travelers and later changed to the Arkansas Travelers. The ballpark was originally called Travelers Field when it first opened in 1932. In 1966, the stadium’s name was changed in honor of Ray Winder. Winder’s association with the Travelers started as a ticket taker as a young boy who worked his way up to becoming a part owner and general manager of the team.
The stadium was constructed in 1931, and was located in Little Rock’s Fair Park (later renamed War Memorial Park). In the 1960s, construction on Interstate 630 began south of the park. To prevent balls from being hit out onto the freeway, a fifty-five-foot fence was erected in 1974. During this time, some of the park’s bleachers were removed, which reduced capacity from 7,000 to around 6,000.
The stadium officially opened on April 13, 1932, and served as the home turf for the Little Rock Travelers Baseball Club from 1932 through 1958, and once again from 1960 to 1961. Ray Winder Field served as the home of the renamed and relaunched Arkansas Travelers Baseball Club from 1963 until 2006, when concerns about its safety due to age, as well as the city leadership’s desire for a more modern venue, led to its closure. The field was also used by several professional Negro League baseball teams during the 1940s and 1950s.
The final baseball game held at Ray Winder Field took place on September 3, 2006, and saw the Arkansas Travelers defeat the Springfield Cardinals 7–2 in front of 8,000 fans (including yours truly). This was the second-largest turnout in the team’s storied history. The largest crowd to watch a game at Ray Winder Field took place in 1991, when 12,000 people came to see Fernando Valenzuela's rehabilitation start. At the time of its closing, Ray Winder Field was one of the oldest active baseball parks in the United States.
After the Arkansas Travelers moved to across the river to Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock in April 2007, Ray Winder Field stood vacant for nearly five years as city leaders, historic preservationists and local baseball aficionados pondered what to do with the historic stadium. Efforts to save it due to it being a historic structure were met with resistance. One idea was to allow the nearby Little Rock Zoo to use it as a viewing area for various animal exhibits. Ultimately, city leaders decided to sell the stadium and land to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Ray Winder Field was demolished and the land was used for a parking lot. However, UAMS did save the scoreboard, ensuring that one iconic remnant of the old ballpark would remain.
Prior to the demolition of Ray Winder Field in July 2012, the public was given an opportunity to purchase a piece of the park. In November 2007, the city held the “Ray Winder Field Yard Sale,” in which anything not nailed down was sold. In May 2011, fans were allowed in on a first-come, first-served basis to claim stadium seats. The orange and green wooden seats were scooped up within minutes.
And while the new ball park in my hometown of North Little Rock is an amazing place to watch a baseball game, in my opinion, no venue will ever be as wonderful as Ray Winder Field—the home to so many exciting games and nostalgic memories
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