In the 1960s San Diego was trying to shed its sleepy-town reputation. Skyscrapers were going up downtown, growth was encouraged. By the end of the decade, the city hosted three major league sports teams: the Chargers, the Padres, and the Rockets. The Chargers were the first to arrive, in 1961, transferring from Los Angeles after the inaugural season of the American Football League. As part of the deal the city made with Chargers’ owner Barron Hilton, various changes were made to Balboa Stadium – improved locker rooms, expanded parking lot, and especially the addition of a second deck to the stadium to increase the capacity to 34,000.
The move was announced in January of 1961; bids went out in April; construction was underway in June, and by September the stadium was ready. It was a different era – things happened fast. Here’s a slideshow of some photos of the work:
The upper deck was still under construction when the Chargers started playing preseason games. Here is a screengrab from a Wide World of Sports segment of the game against the Dallas Texans, played September 3rd, where you can see the incomplete upper deck:
Two weeks later, on September 17th, the upper deck was complete and the Chargers opened the regular season with a 44-0 win over the Oakland Raiders. Here’s an aerial view of the completed stadium, from the San Diego Union the next day:
Hard to imagine that they filled in those gaps in the upper deck in just two weeks. But, as the song says, “those were different times”.
Part of the implied deal to get the Chargers to move to San Diego was that the city would construct a modern stadium for them to play in. In November of 1965, the voters of San Diego passed a $27,000,000 bond ($274,000,000 in 2025 dollars).
Here are some photos from a gathering of boosters for the new stadium:
Here are some photos of the groundbreaking ceremony, held just a month after the referendum passed (December 18th, 1965):
Finally, some photos are various phases of construction:
The stadium opened on August 20, 1967, with the Chargers hosting the Detroit Lions in a preseason game. The Padres moved in in 1969. The Padres left for Petco Park in 2004; the Chargers left for Los Angeles in 2017. The stadium was demolished in December of 2020.