City of Boston Officials and Irish Contractor Charles E. Logue Break Ground for Fenway Park on September 25, 1911

The official groundbreaking for the construction of Boston's new baseball stadium at Fenway Park took place on Monday, September 25, 1911.

The park was built by Charles E. Logue, (1858-1919) an Irish immigrant from Derry, Northern Ireland, who arrived in Boston in 1881 and headed up numerous construction projects, including a number of churches and campus buildings for the Boston Archdioces. The chief architect was James E. McLaughlin, who also designed the South Boston District Courthouse. Boston Latin School and the Endicott School near Franklin Park.

Charles E. Logue at Fenway Park, April 20, 2012

(courtesy of the Logue Family)

The notion of having the park finished by April 1912, in time for the start of the Boston Red Sox season, seems ambitious, looking back, since a lot of the construction work had to be completed during the New England winter. A progress report in The Boston Globe, dated January 28, 1912, states, "Work has been rushed all winter, and not until the recent cold spell was there much delay....Everything is in the rough, but a journey about the plant shows what remarkable headway has been made."

Fenway Park is part of Boston's Irish Heritage Trail, a series of landmarks that chronicle the Boston Irish experience from the 17th century to the present.

For Irish cultural activities in Boston, visit IrishBoston.org.

Research + Text, Michael Quinlin

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