During his 1961 campaign for mayor of Atlanta, Ivan Allen Jr. promised to build a sports facility to attract a Major League Baseball team.

After winning office, Allen chose a 47-acre (19 ha) plot in the Washington–Rawson neighborhood for the building site, citing its proximity to the state capitol, downtown businesses, and major highways.

[1] In 1964, Mayor Allen announced that an unidentified team had given him a verbal commitment to move to Atlanta, provided a stadium was in place by 1966.

Soon afterward, the prospective team was revealed to be the Milwaukee Braves, who announced in October that they intended to move to Atlanta for the 1965 season.

[7] Construction was completed on April 9, 1965, for $18 million, and that night the Milwaukee Braves and Detroit Tigers played an exhibition game in the stadium.

[10] However, the official website of the Atlanta Braves maintains that the name change occurred after Ted Turner purchased the team in 1976.

Following the Olympics and the 1996 World Series, Fulton County commissioner, Marvin S. Arrington Sr., wanted to preserve the stadium as the home of a future Major League Soccer franchise and share the parking facilities between it and Turner Field but he was unable to push it through.

The monument that marked the landing point of Hank Aaron's historic 715th home run stands in the same place it did when the stadium was on the site.

[16] In May 2024, The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the construction of a new baseball stadium on the site, with completion planned in time for the start of the 2026 season.

As was the case for every stadium that used this design concept, the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of baseball and football fields made it inadequate for both sports.

The high elevation and the Southern summer heat made it favorable to home run hitters, resulting in the nickname "The Launching Pad.