| The original stadium, begun as "War Veterans Memorial Stadium" was built on 29 acres donated by the State of Mississippi to Hinds County, which erected the stadium, beginning in 1948, with funds from a $700,000 bond issue. The stadium was only partially finished, and a second bond issue failed to pass, leaving the stadium with 35,000 seats. In 1960, the State of Mississippi acquired the stadium and expanded it to over 46,000 seats. As the third-largest stadium to host games in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), it played host to many inter-state and conference football rivalries, especially the annual Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State. After expansions and renovations to home stadia in Oxford and Starkville, Veterans Stadium was used less and less, and by the early 1990s, out-of-town universities has ceased to play home games here. The stadium is now the home of the Jackson State University Tigers. It is included in "Jackson Landmarks" (1982) (p. 125) and it is mentioned in "Buildings of Mississippi" (2020) (p. 260, in the in the introductory text for the Fondren neighborhood). |