Fifteen days before the first game was played in it. They cut it pretty close.
Nice view of the Shamrock Hotel also.
Here’s an aerial from the opposite direction that’s also dated 1950, but looks to have been taken after the stadium opened:
Bonus:
There are columns out there with nothing on them – just rebar sticking up.
They still have to build the forms for that end of the stands, pour and cure the concrete, and install the bleachers.
I don’t think that happened in 15 days.
Fondren looks much more interesting, before they bulked it up and blocked it out (2nd picture)
Back in the 50’s, when the stadium actually sold out, boy scouts were used as ushers. I was one of them but I can’t remember a single thing about the games. I was always too busy.
The amazing thing to me is how undeveloped downtown Houston and the Medical Center were in 1950.
This does not look like a modular form, that could be lifted by crane to the next section over.
And the four outer edges are unlike any of the other sections, with the exception of the diagonally opposite section.
https://ricehistorycorner.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/stadium-construction-anderson-1.jpg
Brown & Root built the stadium quickly but I bet it would take a small atomic bomb to demolish it.