In 1929, Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators sent a young scout by the name of Joe Engel to the South to find a home for the club's first minor league affiliate.

Engel not only bought the Chattanooga Lookouts from Sammy Strang, but also replaced their ballpark, Andrews Field with a state-of-the-art stadium at a cost of $150,000.

During the game, a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell pitched for the Lookouts, striking out Major League greats Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.

[3] In 1936, a record crowd of 24,624 fans crammed into the park that only held 12,000 seats for the chance of winning a house in the middle of the Great Depression.

Many notables have played on the field, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Ferguson Jenkins, Kiki Cuyler, and Rogers Hornsby.

In 1972, Chattanooga News Free Press columnist Allan Morris wrote that "paint is peeling off the walls, the floor is filthy, the roof is falling down, and it looks like a tornado hit the place."

When Woody Reid bought the club in 1976 and gained a Major League affiliate in the Oakland Athletics, he hosted "Sparkle Days" at the stadium, where fans volunteered their time to fixing up Engel.

By 1998, the situation got so severe that Burke agreed to fund a new ballpark on top of Hawk Hill, so long as he could sell 1,800 season tickets and 10 luxury boxes for his new park by February 4, 1999.

[5] The University will build a state-of-the-art track and field complex in the current parking lot and partner with the Engel Foundation in the restoration of the Stadium.

On April 5, 2011 the City of Chattanooga passed an interim agreement allowing UTC to take control of the Stadium, pending final approval of the state government.

Vice Chancellor Richard Brown announced plans to work with The Engel Foundation to restore the Stadium, which was damaged during a tornado in April 2011.

In its short existence, the Foundation has hosted a Great Spaces Open House at the Stadium that was attended by over a hundred people, two Legends Baseball Camps led by former major leaguers Steve Trout, Rick Honeycutt, Willie Wilson, and Jay Johnstone, and on December 14, 2009, Engel Stadium was approved as a site on the National Register of Historic Places.