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Breese Stevens Field - Live Music Venue in Madison

Breese Stevens Field, officially Breese Stevens Municipal Athletic Field, is a multi-purpose stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. Located eight blocks northeast of the Wisconsin State Capitol on the Madison Isthmus, it is the oldest extant masonry grandstand in Wisconsin.

Venue
Breese Stevens Field
Address
917 East Mifflin Street
Town
Madison, US

Breese Stevens Field, officially Breese Stevens Municipal Athletic Field, is a multi-purpose stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. Located eight blocks northeast of the Wisconsin State Capitol on the Madison Isthmus, it is the oldest extant masonry grandstand in Wisconsin. The field is named in honor of Breese J. Stevens, a mayor of Madison and later a University of Wisconsin-Madison regent. His widow, Elizabeth Farmer Stevens, enlisted her daughter's brother in law Joseph W. "Bud" Jackson to sell the marshy block her husband acquired decades earlier. Jackson suggested the block should become an athletic field, and be named for Mr. Stevens. The complex was designated as a Madison Landmark in 1995 and was accepted for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places and the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places in 2014. The venue currently seats nearly 5,000, which can be expanded to 9,333 for concerts. It is home to the USL League One soccer team Forward Madison FC; the USL W League soccer team Rally Madison FC; Madison East High School teams; the Ultimate Frisbee Association team Madison Radicals; and the Madison 56ers amateur soccer team. In its history, the field has also hosted ice skating, boxing, wrestling, Australian rules football, lacrosse, track and field, midget car racing, rodeos, circuses, drum and bugle corps competitions, concerts, and fraternal and religious gatherings. Addressing the concern that Madison's sports facilities were insufficient, the city council began efforts to establish a new athletic field in 1922. After first trying to obtain the land by donation, a joint committee of the council and the Association of Commerce considered sites such as Olbrich Park and what is today's Georgia O'Keeffe Middle School playground. As early as 1920 Stevens’ widow Elizabeth Farmer Stevens contacted her daughter’s brother-in-law, Joseph “Bud” Jackson, business manager of the Jackson Clinic, to arrange the sale of the Stevens estate's marshy property o