Fans left with memories

They streamed slowly under the Amazon Parkway overpass all morning on Tuesday, like cars in a funeral procession, the drivers and their passengers trying to get a glimpse of the charred remains of a local icon.

Atop the overpass stood Kirsten Bartlett, dressed in her morning running gear.

“The place was just magical,” she said, looking westward at Civic Stadium’s blackened skeleton, three firefighters standing on the singed field, just behind what was once third base.

Bartlett, who has lived in a 19th-century home on nearby College Hill, with her husband, Tom, since 1990, mentioned her three children and the photo of them that hangs in their home, and began to break into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “They literally grew up there. It’s the first ‘church’ my kids ever went to.”

The photograph was taken in the Civic grandstands in 1997, when the children — Will, Zoe and Caitlin — were all between 3 and 8 in age.

She pulled it up on her smartphone. Will, now 21 and a graduate student in Portland, sits in the middle, holding a baseball glove above his head. Caitlin, now 26 and also in Portland, and Zoe, who died of cancer at age 15 in 2006, are dressed in Eugene Emeralds baseball uniforms, flanking their younger brother.

Bartlett was among many on Tuesday dealing with the loss — and the irony — of the 77-year-old stadium, which appeared to have staved off being razed when the nonprofit Eugene Civic Alliance acquired it earlier this year.

“Very saddened,” said Dennis Hebert, 68, who was president of the grassroots organization Save Civic Stadium, standing in the stadium’s parking lot Tuesday morning. “Just dumbfounded. Loss of words. Just unbelievable. Just couldn’t believe it was happening. How could this happen? Something that the whole community came together to save, how could it be snatched from us so fast? It’s just not right.”

Hebert was at his home in south Eugene on Monday, with his wife, Larena Sullivan, when a friend driving near the stadium “called in a panic” with the news.

“Civic’s on fire! It’s bad!”

Hebert relayed the surreal news to his wife.

“Grab your shoes,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

They took the corner at 38th Avenue and Hilyard Street and could see the smoke from 18 blocks away.

“And that’s when she started to cry,” Hebert said.

They parked and made their way as close as possible, behind a police line near 20th Avenue and Oak Street.

“The heat was just tremendous,” Hebert said. “And we just kind of all stood there in disbelief.”

They hugged and accepted thanks and condolences for their years of effort to save the stadium.

“It’s a lot like the death of a close friend or relative,” said Hebert, his 1961 International Harvester Metro van — the one with a baseball for a gear-shift knob — parked nearby. “It was a part of so many people’s lives.”

Another Save Civic Stadium member, Joe Blakely, 75, and his wife, Saundra Miles, stood nearby Tuesday as local news media hovered, awaiting a press conference with fire and police officials.

“You know, it never really hit me until I got up this morning,” said Blakely, a 1957 graduate of Eugene High School and author of the 2009 book, “Eugene’s Civic Stadium: From Muddy Football Games to Professional Baseball.”

Blakely, who played high school football at the stadium in the mid-1950s, talked about the history of the place, including how Eugene voters approved its construction in 1938 despite rampant unemployment during the Great Depression.

How the stadium was built as a Works Progress Administration project, a joint effort between the federal government, the Eugene School District, the Chamber of Commerce, the city of Eugene and local businesses.

How it hosted concerts, rodeos, baseball, football, soccer, political events and fireworks displays over multiple decades.

How its construction must have seemed “insurmountable” almost eight decades ago, just as its rescue must have seemed to Save Civic Stadium members when their effort began eight years ago.

“Yet, because of the community involvement, just like it was back in 1938, we were able to create what we wanted to do,” Blakely said.

As she took in the scene Tuesday, looking from the parkway overpass toward the old ballpark’s centerfield, Bartlett expressed amazement at what she saw. “I can’t believe the scoreboard’s still there,” she said.

Bartlett said she’s been to PK Park, next to Autzen Stadium, where the Eugene Emeralds now play their games after 40 years at Civic Stadium.

“And I have to say I don’t like it,” she said of the Ems’ current venue. “I think people came (to Civic) because they enjoyed the sounds and rhythms of baseball. It just sort of reverberated in there. It was so beautiful.”

Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkBakerRG . Email [email protected] .