The stadium also hosted the first professional football and first spring training games in Tampa and was the long-time home of the Florida State Fair.

Much of the seating areas and the race track were removed and several academic buildings and student housing facilities built in their place, while the last portion of the Plant Field grandstand renamed Pepin-Rood Stadium in 1983.

Plant reached Tampa, connecting the small town to the nation's railroad system for the first time and helping to stimulate rapid growth and development.

These facilities were greatly enlarged and expanded in 1899 and become Plant Field, which was large enough to host a wide variety of sports and other activities.

Henry Plant built a horse track on the grounds east of North Boulevard and south of Cass Street, now the site of the University of Tampa athletic fields.

When automobile races were added to the South Florida Fair in 1921, the horse track was converted into a 1/2 mile dirt oval that operated until 1980.

On March 26, 1914, Plant Field hosted the first major league baseball spring training game in the Tampa Bay area when the Cubs defeated the St. Louis Browns 3–2.

Babe Ruth, playing in what would be his last season with the Red Sox, hit a home run 587 feet against the New York Giants during an exhibition game.

[3] Over the years, Plant Field was the spring home to many major league teams, including the Washington Senators in the 1920s, the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s, and the Cincinnati Reds in the 1940s.

In November 1950, the Jackie Robinson All-Stars played a local black semi-professional team, the Tampa Rockets, at Plant Field.

On New Year's Day 1926, the Chicago Bears, led by Red Grange, defeated the Tampa Cardinals, a traveling pick-up team featuring Jim Thorpe, 17–3.

And in 1977, the Florida State Fair moved to a more spacious location at the intersection of Interstate 4 and U.S. Highway 301 in unincorporated Hillsborough County, east of Tampa.

[6] Over the following decades, the university used Plant Field for various school and community events while gradually repurposing some of the land, and the surrounding concrete wall and much of the seating area were demolished and replaced with new facilities in several stages.