Gilmore Field, on Beverly Boulevard near the intersection of Beverly and Fairfax in Hollywood, California, opened on May 2, 1939 and was the home of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League until September 5, 1957. An intimate stadium with seating capacity of 12,987, it was named after Earl Gilmore, an oil tycoon who owned the site and whose construction company built the ballpark. A couple hundred yards to the west was Gilmore Stadium, an oval-shaped venue built several years earlier, which was used for football games and midget auto racing. Gilmore Field was razed in 1958, and much of the site is now occupied by a parking lot at CBS Television City, near the Farmers Market. In September of 1997, the Pacific Coast League Historical Society, CBS, and the A.F. Gilmore Company dedicated a bronze plaque in commemoration of Gilmore Field on a wall outside CBS Studio 46.
The model of Gilmore Field was painstakingly built by John Daly of Coronado, California, who was born and raised just four blocks from Gilmore Field and fondly recalls attending many games there in his youth. Aided by photographs and with assistance from his grandson Kyle, Daly reconstructed the ballpark in miniature, on a scale of one inch for every thirty feet of the original structure. In keeping with the original wooden construction of Gilmore Field, Daly used mostly basswood for the grandstands, making separate sections and then assembling them on a plywood platform. The model, which took about one year to complete, was donated to the Baseball Reliquary by John Daly and his family in July 2002.
Photos courtesy of Larry Goren
