In his last year of his life, Browning was planning on erecting a memorial to himself on the farmland that he owned when he was convinced by A. M. Beal, President of the Moline Board of Education, to deed the land to the city for use as an athletic park.

On July 14, 1910, he added the codicil to his will, stating that his land were to be "held in trust forever by the City of Moline and dedicated to the public as and for a playground and athletic park, which shall be known and designated as the John T. Browning Park, Playground, and Athletic Field".

[1] While the sports teams of Moline High School have been the primary tenants of the field (and the adjoining Wharton Field House),[2] the Rock Island Independents, the only professional American football team to be charter members of two major leagues, called Browning Park its home in the 1920s, as did the minor league baseball Moline Plowboys.

Moline High School defeated Maquoketa 34–0 in a football game, the first event at John T. Browning Park.

[1] In the late 1920s, T. F. Wharton, president of the Moline High School boosters' club led the drive toward the sale of bonds, the proceeds of which to pay for the construction of a field house on adjoining land (this was also deeded to the city of Moline upon the retirement of the bonds).

However, the Independents left the NFL and Douglas Park, moving to Browning Field and playing in the new, but short lived American Football League.

[3] In an exhibition game on April 12, 1920, the Plowboys defeated the Chicago White Sox 7–1 at Browning Field.