For 75 years, students, parents, and fans have gathered at La Porte’s Kiwanis Field to cheer on the local high school’s football team, the mighty Slicers—named for a local meat-slicing equipment company that supported construction of the original school in the late 1800s.
La Porte’s Kiwanis Club spearheaded construction of the stadium in 1950, and architects O’Keefe and Keil delivered a striking Streamline Moderne fieldhouse, with locker rooms tucked under a sloping grandstand.
After decades of hard use by home and visiting teams, the stadium needs repairs and improvements to meet modern standards. Recently, school officials have suggested that building a new football stadium elsewhere would be more cost-effective than investing in the old facility. Indiana Landmarks and Preserve Historic La Porte have offered to pay for an engineering study to determine the cost of renovating Kiwanis Field, but so far, the school board has declined to accept.
More than 750 community members have signed a petition in support of rehabbing the fieldhouse to incorporate updated locker rooms and athletic facilities while preserving it as the high school’s signature sports venue. The school board has offered no further comment on the facility or shared any plans to address deferred maintenance. Left unattended, repairs will only become more costly.
Todd Zeiger
Director
Indiana Landmarks Northern Regional Office
574-232-4534
tzeiger@indianalandmarks.org
Mark Kurth
President
Preserve Historic La Porte
773-315-6667
markkurth@gmail.com
