This article has been edited since it first appeared in print.
Charles Foster Willard pilots an early Curtiss aircraft as spectators look on at the 1909 Virginia State Fair. The building in the background later became known as the Arena.
Wahoo McDaniel and Ric Flair. The Harlem Globetrotters. Cat and dog shows. Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Tobacco Bowl festivities and the Hand Workshop (today’s Visual Arts Center of Richmond) Craft + Design Show. Count Basie. Proms, graduations, car and boat shows. The Bizarre Bazaar. Championship tennis, ice skating and Roller Derby. The James Brown Revue. Bill Haley & His Comets. Carly Simon, Livingston Taylor and Jonathan Edwards. And KISS.
Before venues such as the Richmond Coliseum, Greater Richmond Convention Center, Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center, University of Richmond’s Robins Center or Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center, the Arena served as the region’s premier venue for indoor sports and events. The building stood on the present site of Sports Backers Stadium, by The Diamond.
The barrel-vaulted building opened in 1908 as the Manufacturing and Industrial Exhibition Hall for the Virginia State Agricultural and Mechanical Society Fairgrounds. In addition to showing off electrical motors and other innovations, the facility housed the exposition’s administrative offices.
During 1917-1918, the site filled in as a United States Army induction center.
After the war and the influenza epidemic, spectacle returned. On Oct. 8, 1924, Mabel Cody’s Flying Circus of Coral Gables, Florida, flew above some 60,000 spectators as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Aviators performed “intricate, dangerous, difficult stunts of the dainty aviatrix and her daredevil companions of the air,” according to the paper.
A wing-walking demonstration went awry when pilot Russell Simon maneuvered his craft alongside Alexis McMullen’s for Barney Rowe to make the leap. Simon’s craft struck McMullen’s wing. After a sharp dart forward, the plane nosedived into the building.
Hundreds of attendees who were inside fled for the exits only to collide into people rushing in for shelter from the plane’s death spiral. The panic injured six women.
McMullen brought his plane down near Bellevue while Rowe wrenched an arm pulling himself onto the plane. A hook and ladder firefighter team removed Simon’s crushed body from the suspended wreck.
During WWII, the U.S. Army used the exhibition hall as a motor pool, and afterward the city stored vehicles there. Meanwhile, the University of Richmond’s men’s basketball team excelled. The Spiders played in the inadequate Millhiser Gym on campus and at Benedictine High School. No place in the city’s environs could accommodate more than 2,000 for a sporting event. Clyde H. Ratcliffe Jr., whose father directed the State Fair, knew the exhibition building well and recognized the need for an overhaul. Ratcliffe, a sports enthusiast, saw an opportunity.
City Council balked at his 1952 request for $160,000, voting it down 5-2. Yet in 1954, City Council approved leasing Parker Field to Greater Richmond Civic Recreation Inc. When Ratcliffe went again to Council that same year, they agreed to allow the renovations provided Ratcliffe built a parking garage for the city’s motor pool.
Arthur Ashe graces the cover of the program for the 1967 Fidelity Bankers Invitational Tennis Tournament, which was held at the Arena.
Ratcliffe formed the Arena Corp. to raise funds, and the board included prominent names: Lewis F. Powell Jr. (a future U.S. Supreme Court justice), Richard S. Reynolds Jr., E. Claiborne Robins and John J. Wicker Jr.
The board requested contributions ranging from $500 to $100,000. They raised $300,000 and set aside $50,000 for the garage. The conversion ultimately cost $285,145. The Arena Corp. leased the building from the city for $1 a year.
That refurbishment provided 4,252 permanent seats by retractable bleachers — an innovative feature at the time. Additional bleachers provided another 900 seats. The capacity more than doubled that of any other facility in the region.
On Dec. 17, 1954, 3,900 people packed the Arena to watch the University of Richmond, coached by Lester Hooker, play Virginia Military Institute, led by coach Chuck Noe. UR won 94-74. In 1997, Noe told Times-Dispatch reporter Mike Harris that the Arena bettered campus venues.
“When we came from those old places to the Arena, well, we thought we were coming to Mecca,” Noe said. “It was a great place, it really was, and there were as many quality players who played there as you could see anywhere.”
In 1955, the Harlem Globetrotters set an attendance record at the Arena, drawing 6,022 spectators. The Southern Conference held its college basketball tournament at the Arena for nine years, until a large, modern building lured the basketball tournament to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1964. This was the shape of things to come.
The Arena was known for basketball, including early iterations of the Globetrotters, college games and local high school tournaments.
Richmond’s first master plan, drafted in 1946, advocated for a downtown “activities center.” Downtown revival fever of the 1960s renewed the discussion.
Amid controversy, the 9,176-seat Coliseum opened to audiences in August 1971. Other venues soon followed. The Arena, once billed as the best and biggest event space within 400 miles, became the fifth-largest hall in Richmond.
The shared experiences of those who produced the events and the audiences that attended them engendered affection for the Arena despite the building’s shortcomings.
The Arena lacked both insulation and air conditioning.
“The Arena was hotter than the hinges of hell,” recalled Rich Landrum, a professional wrestling ring announcer and television host for “World Wide Wrestling” from 1978-1982. Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling historian Dick Bourne recorded these and other details for his online archive.
The Arena’s exposed rafters inspired colorful comments from some wrestlers. Blackjack Mulligan once threatened to put a rope around Johnny Weaver’s neck and hang him. In some spots, the beams supporting the upper seating blocked sight lines. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and the crowds were often rambunctious. During the later years, a proliferation of buckets collected rainwater from numerous leaks.
The Arena Corp. returned the facility’s operations to the city in 1973.
The wrestling event on June 24, 1977, headlined by a tag team match between Johnny Weaver and Wahoo McDaniel vs. Ric Flair and Greg Valentine, was the last of its kind at the Arena. Wrestling became a biweekly event and relocated to the larger Coliseum.
In 1986, the events ranged from the Greater Richmond Antiques Show to the 18th Annual Bavarian Style Richmond Oktoberfest. Radio personalities Bill Bevins and the late Steve “Mr. Beach” Leonard broadcast live from the Richmond International Auto Show. The Arena’s civic life concluded that year with a Hertz used car sale on Oct. 10-11.
C. W. “Cy” Hudson, the Arena’s general manager from 1958-1975, reflected, “It’s done its duty. The dear old lady is about to fall down.” Except she didn’t. Another manager, Norman Gaines, asserted in 1997: “A lot of people said the building was going to fall down and it is still standing. … I’m thinking it will really be missed. There are a lot of memories there.”
The city sold the property to Virginia Commonwealth University for a soccer and track complex and to serve as headquarters for Richmond’s Sports Backers.
The Arena’s final event of September 1997 involved welders’ torches and bulldozers.
