24 Cornerstone Fall 2025 agchouston.org keeping a keen eye on operations. “Several people told me that Mr. Lott would watch you work for a while, compliment you, then say, ‘have you tried thinking about doing it this way, too?’” said Kiley, who is passionate about conserving Houston’s general contract- ing history through his company, Kiley Literary Legacies. “Almost every time, he was showing them how to do something just as well but in a way that would be easier on the worker and faster — Lott was a legend.” Opening Day and Beyond Officially opened on April 9, 1965 — with an exhibition game between the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees — the Astrodome astonished everyone in attendance; even Mickey Mantle was famously reported to have been awed by the stadium’s size and atmosphere. The roof held. The air conditioning kept occupants cool. And fans didn’t have to swat a single mosquito. “It had been an absolutely incompre- hensible concept until the dome worked! We went from very low attendance at outdoor stadium games to everyone going to the ‘Dome. Even businessmen would take clients to afternoon games,” Kiley shared. “Plus, it fit with Houston’s coming of age as an energy capital of the world.” Very quickly, the Astrodome became so much more than just a baseball sta- dium. “Of course, everything was bigger and better than anywhere else, true to our Texas tradition! The food courts, scoreboards … all of it was special,” added Kiley. “Everyone remembers going to their first game in it and being overwhelmed by the massiveness of it all.” The Astrodome was also used to host football games, boxing matches, and even rodeos and concerts. Huge celebrities such as Judy Garland (1965), Elvis Pres- ley (1970 and 1974), The Jackson Five (1973), The Rolling Stones (1981, 1989 and 1994), Selena (1995) and George Strait (2002) all performed beneath the behemoth dome while fans watched from the comfort of their climate-controlled seats. In 1971, Evel Knievel set a world record with a motorcycle jump inside the Astrodome and, in 1973, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the highly pub- licized “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match that drew more than 30,000 spectators. Additionally, in 1992, the Astrodome was the site of the Republican National Convention. Aptly Named Astroturf Not long after the Astrodome opened, however, another challenge cropped up. Early designs had called for real grass on the field, but the roof’s semi-transparent Lucite panels blocked too much sunlight, causing the turf to wither. Groundskeepers tried using a combi- nation of glass and plastic panels, but it didn’t help. The heat inside the dome, even with air conditioning, was another problem. Eventually, the group gave up Although the Astrodome now sits empty and unused, and its future is still uncertain, it served Houston as a premier venue for almost 50 years.
