Getting To Arrowhead
The Chiefs’ first home was the city owned Municipal Stadium. Their first home game was on Aug. 9, 1963, with a whopping 5,721 fans looking on. Lamar Hunt knew it wasn’t the best of stadiums but it was big enough and I imagine the city did not charge him much. Plus, many promises were made about improvements.
The Chiefs shared the Municipal with the baseball Athletics. I remember going to A’s baseball games there. I remember liking the stadium, but parking was always difficult. It is fun to note that Municipal Stadium in the ‘20s was also the home of the Negro League's Monarchs.
The Athletics were owned by the ‘eccentric’ Charles Finley. Finley did not make it a secret that he did not like being in KC. He was heard to say KC was a horse$%&# town and he wanted to move. The Athletics moved after their 1967 season (good riddance). This was the first time KC was without a professional baseball team since 1880.
The city knew in order for KC not to lose the Chiefs too, they had to come up with a new and bigger stadium. Plus, the NFL/AFL merger required that NFL Stadiums had to hold at least 50,000 spectators. Municipal was right at 35,000. The city could not put things together so the Jackson County Sports Authority was formed and they stepped in. The I-70 location was picked and the voters approved $102 million in 1967. The voters thought they were getting two stadiums (football and baseball) with a sliding roof. If you haven’t noticed the roof never made it (too costly and too complicated).
Arrowhead was completed in 1972 with the first regular season home game on Nov. 4 with 82,094 in the stands. At the
