Dome run is walk down memory lane
Hundreds of supporters turn out for the inaugural fundraising race — and nostalgia
Some 200 supporters of the Astrodome trekked to the Houston relic Saturday for a 5K run, raising funds for the building’s conservancy and exchanging memories of the old Astros games and landmark events it hosted.
The Astrodome Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving the stadium, hosted the
“Race for the Dome” event, giving supporters a more intimate experience with the building than is possible when thousands flock around it for the pre-pandemic Houston Livestock Show & Rodeos. The walkers and runners came out in four socially distanced waves, avoiding crowds. About 70 others completed it virtually.
“Being here, mano a mano, you really get perspective and you get to appreciate it,” said
Beth Wiedower Jackson, the conservancy’s executive director.
Eight laps around the socalled “Eighth Wonder of the World” would get attendees close to a 5-kilometer distance. The 200 people who showed up provided an unusual flurry of activity for the Dome, which sits adjacent to NRG Stadium and has been vacant since 2009, shortly after its occupancy permit was revoked by the Houston Fire Department.
Voters rejected a $217 million plan to renovate the stadium into a convention center in a 2013 referendum. As recently as 2014, the
Houston Texans and Rodeo were suggesting they knock it down and replace it with an open-air structure to preserve its history.
The Dome — the first-ever enclosed and air-conditioned sports stadium — won a state antiquity landmark designation in 2017, ensuring it will not be demolished.
“It’s not going anywhere,” as Wiedower Jackson put it.
Harris County approved a $105 million plan to transform it into a parking garage and event venue, but County Judge Lina Hidalgo — who won an upset election later
that year — has shelved that plan.
Everyone has ideas for what the Dome can be next, Wiedower Jackson said. The conservancy is pursuing the reuse of the building, even if the exact plans are not known yet.
“If it were easy, it would already be done. The passion is there, people want to see the Astrodome redeveloped,” Wiedower Jackson said. “We see this as an opportunity to think bigger.”
The supporters who lapped around the stadium Saturday recalled childhood memories of attending games, concerts and other events, such as the 1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and the college basketball “Game of the Century” when the University of Houston narrowly toppled the University of California at Los Angeles in 1968.
Welcome Wilson, Jr. recalled both of those events as he strolled the stadium grounds with his wife, Anita, and their dog, Mika.
“It’s a huge part of Houston history that you’d hate to see just fade away,” Wilson said.
Anita Wilson remembers attending Astros games in the nosebleeds with her father. She also volunteered at the Rodeo, which came with the perk of behind-thescenes views at the Astrodome. When people visit the state, she said, they want to see three landmarks: NASA, the Alamo in San Antonio — and the Astrodome.
“That’s what they’ve heard about Texas,” she said.
For Lynder Watson Ellison, the most lasting memory is seeing the Jackson 5.
“It was really awesome just being in the Dome, seeing Michael and his brothers perform,” she said. Watson Ellison regrets not buying one of the stadium’s seats when she had the chance, and she hopes it will be restored.
It’s a sentiment shared by Peter Walbridge, who pushed 8-monthold son William in a stroller on his walk. Like many Houstonians, Walbridge remembers going to Astros games with his father, who attended the first-ever game there in 1965.
Walbridge was there for ace pitcher Randy Johnson’s first game of his brief Astros tenure in 1998. He said it was the loudest he has heard a stadium crowd.
“I just hope Willy here can come out in some respect” when he gets older, Walbridge said.