Thousands of area athletes have honed their skills and competed in games at every level over the last century on the athletic field situated next to Dillsburg Elementary School, and behind the former Dillsburg High School (1914) and Administration building. Most Dillsburg residents may not know that the field was originally to have been dedicated to the area veterans of World War I.

The group of baseball fields that are known today as Wolfe Field, Ryder Field and Gross Field have been essential for Dillsburg Youth Baseball games for decades. That same athletic field also hosted adult league baseball, high school football and soccer, and a variety of other sporting and community events.

The origin of the field dates to the post World War I era. The 'new' Dillsburg High School, constructed after the Great Dillsburg Fire of 1913, had been built by 1914, just as the world was plunged into the 'Great War'. The United States entered the War in 1917 and many local boys enlisted.

When the war ended on November 11, 1918, local citizens were interested in honoring the returning local veterans, and memorializing those who were killed, including William Stouffer, Charles Hess, Monroe Hunter, H. W. Miller and R. P. Miller.

The local chapter of the Patriotic Order, Sons of America, Washington Camp 777, drafted a resolution and published it in the Dillsburg Weekly Bulletin on March 7, 1920, to buy a plot of land for sports and recreation to be donated to the Dillsburg School District. This athletic field was to be a memorial to those from Dillsburg who fought and served in WWI.

While the records of the fund raising campaign are lost to history, the project seems to have been put on hold. The school district eventually purchased the land from U. S. G. Logan, a local automobile dealer, in 1928 and made it available for parking during the annual Farmers Day celebration. It was reported to have held 1000 cars. The field was also used for archery classes, taught by Professor Ernest Hartman, and hosted Dillsburg High School's earliest football games from 1930 to 1935.

Although the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression in 1933, a Civil Works Administration Project, under the National Recovery Act, was commissioned to grade and level the field. The CWA hired 110 workers, at 50 cents an hour, to prepare the field, the majority of the work done manually. A baseball diamond (originally planned as a football gridiron) and two tennis courts were established. C. S. Williams, a local contractor, assisted by Benjamin Knaub, was in charge of the project, completing it in two months!

During the ensuing decades, the field became the home of the Troop 38 Boy Scout Cabin (built in 1942); housed a “Airplane Spotter's Shack” during the early years of World War II, an obstacle course, and was the home of Dillsburg High School Varsity Soccer team (until 1955), as well as DHS baseball, softball, and field hockey.  Local educator, coach, and legend Rev. Arthur T. Kaup also began a rudimentary track team and Dillsburg kids played endless games of Capture the Flag on the field at night! When the school district re-started the soccer program in the mid 1980's, the 'downtown' athletic field once again was used by the teams until a new field was completed in the early 2000's.

Today, the field continues to host hundreds of baseball games, Farmer's Fair exhibits, and events and activities for Dillsburg Elementary School. So as the sounds of fall baseball games echo and fade across Dillsburg's historic athletic field, remember those young men of World War I to whom the field was dedicated and honor them on November 11.

~ Doug Riley (published in the Dillsburg Banner - November 2024)