The ballpark was built adjacent to the site of an earlier Newark facility known as Wiedenmayer's Park, which served as the home field of the Newark Indians from 1902 through 1916. It was also used for other events until being destroyed by fire in 1925.
In January 1932, the stadium was renamed for Jacob Ruppert, a baseball team owner who built the farm system of the New York Yankees.[6]
In October 1952, the Yankees organization announced their intention to tear down the 14,000-seat stadium and sell the land for real estate development.[7] The local Board of Education stepped in to purchase the stadium for $275,000 and converted the property into a school recreation center.[8][9] In 1967 the stadium was demolished[10] and the land was sold again the following year to the Vita Food Products company, which built a food plant on the site.[11][12]
^Mayer, Ronald A. (1994). The 1937 Newark Bears: A Baseball Legend. Rutgers University Press. ISBN978-0-8135-2153-4. Jacob Ruppert, owner of the New York Yankees, purchased the team from the newspaper publisher Paul Block in 1931. Mayer traces the Bears' exciting first five seasons under Ruppert and the building of a farm system that eventually produced the great Yankee ... sprinkled with some of the great names of the American pastime: Ed Barrow, Paul Kritchell, Al Mamaux, Red Rolfe, Babe Ruth, Shag Shaughnessey, Bob Shawkey, and George Weiss.
