Football 1889
*Photograph courtesy of The Dickinson College Archives
This photograph is believed to have been taken around 1889.  Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-nine was the first winning season in Dickinson's football history.  The team fielded by player coach and captain Charles J. Turpin won four of six games played, tied one game, and lost one game to Franklin and Marshal.  Swarthmore, however, disputes Dickinson's claim of victory in their game on the grounds that Dickinson used an illegal substitute.  Dickinson did indeed call upon the services of a fan in the stands during that game.   All of Dickinson's substitutes had been injured.  In order to field a team and prevent a forfeit of the game, William W. Wharton, class of 1889, reportedly volunteered to play.

During the year 1889, a new athletic constitution gave sports at Dickinson a firmer legal ground.  It was hoped that the constitution would breath new life into sports at Dickinson.  In response to athletics new legal status and the growth of Carlisle, that might soon have prevented expansion, the Athletic Association rented an option on a piece of land located at the corner of Cherry and Louther Streets, Carlisle.  Total purchase of the land was completed in a year, and the first game was held in 1890 against Bucknell.  Prior games at Dickinson had been played either at the field of the Indian School or at the Fair Grounds owned by the C. H. Masland Co.  The Cherry and Louther Street field was the first of its kind owned by Dickinson College.

In 1904 there was a movement at the college to name the school field after Dickinson's most famous alumni, President James Buchanan, but no name resulted.  The unnamed field was in use until 1909, when a new field west of the campus, which was to become Biddle Field, was donated to the college.

In 1971, the Reeves-Hoffman Plant was built at the site of this first athletic field Dickinson College owned. 


Source:
Wilbur J. Gobrecht, The History of Football at Dickinson College, 1885-1969