Centene Stadium

Legion Park redirects here. For the ballpark in Raton, NM, see Legion Park (Raton).

Centene Stadium
Location	Great Falls, MT United States 47.516895; -111.259102
Building chronology
Built	1956
Tenants
Great Falls Voyagers
Capacity
3,800

Centene Stadium in Great Falls, MT, was the home of Great Falls affiliated baseball from 1963 through 2019. After that and the Coronavirus pandemic-canceled 2020 season, MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization made the Rookie-Advanced Pioneer League - including the Great Falls Voyagers - an independent circuit.

Baseball here actually dates to 1940, with a history that includes a great save story that has nothing to do with relief pitching plus a later and very thorough renovation.

The original Civilian Conservation Corps project opened as Legion Park in 1940. A Los Angeles Dodgers affiliation landed in 1953 was lost to ballpark deterioration 10 years later. Then, 100 baseball-loving business people pledged $1,000 each toward a renovation so extensive it seems today's stadium was "built" on the site of the one it "replaced". The new stadium was also called Legion Park until Centene Corporation, a managed care company, bought naming rights in 2007.

Affiliated baseball returned in the form of a partnership with the San Francisco Giants in 1969; the Dodgers returned in 1984.

A $2.2 million renovation - only a quarter of that on taxpayers - began in 2003 as they switched parents to the Chicago White Sox, originally using that nickname. Five years later, they became "Voyagers" - for the old Legion Park's famed 1950 UFO filming.[1]

All Great Falls professional teams from 1916 through 1963 played as the Electrics - except the 1949 and 1950 seasons as the Selectrics.

Centene has a capacity of 3,800 people.

Photograph Courtesy of (c) Eric and Wendy Pastore http://www.digitalballparks.com