Somerville Stadium

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Somerville Stadium. Now settle in, because this is a story about what a community can build when it has just about nothing left to work with. We're in Burleson County, and the shadow of the Great Depression is lying heavy over the town of Somerville.

Money is scarce, work is scarcer, and the future looks about as promising as a dry creek bed in August. But here's where the story turns. The Somerville School Board partnered with the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, to build a football stadium.

And not just any stadium. They were going to build something that would last. Something that would mean something.

The design fell to a man named Travis Broesche, and he drew it up in the rustic style of architecture. They called it The Rock, and that name was not chosen lightly. The building material was native stone and petrified wood, and the crew that hauled and stacked it was made up of around a hundred local men.

Now here's the part that ought to stop you cold. Most of those men had little or no masonry experience. Not much.

Some had none at all. They were just Somerville men who needed work and were willing to learn, willing to carry, willing to do whatever it took. They transferred that rock from the nearby Yegua Creek bottom and erected the stadium stone by stone.

The WPA completed it in 1940. When it was done, Somerville had a place for football, for baseball, for powder-puff football, for graduation ceremonies, for community gatherings of every kind. The Rock has held all of it.

The cheers, the diplomas, the milestones of a town that refused to quit. That stadium standing there in Burleson County isn't just a pile of stones pulled from a creek bottom by men with unsteady hands. It's what perseverance looks like when you give it a little time to cure.

What the marker says

Emerging from the Great Depression, the Somerville School Board partnered with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to build a football stadium. Known as "The Rock," the stadium was designed by Travis Broesche in the rustic style of architecture. Using native stone and petrified wood, it was completed by the WPA in 1940. A crew of around 100 local men transferred rock from the nearby Yegua Creek bottom and erected the stadium, most with little or no masonry experience. Events held at the stadium include football, baseball, powder-puff football, graduation ceremonies and local events for the community. The stadium is a unique reminder of the perseverance of a community during a time of hardship.