Some might call it the year Huntsville had its “glow up.” The time when the medium-sized burg finally became a “big city.”

It was 40 years ago, in April of 1985, that Joe Davis Stadium was constructed and became home to the city’s first minor league baseball team, the Huntsville Stars.

The stadium, which cost $5.7 million to build and was named for a five-time Huntsville mayor, was at the time a state-of-the-art facility, according to a 1985 article in The Huntsville Times.

Click through the gallery at the top of this story to see photos from the stadium’s 40-year history.

The gleaming new Madison Square Mall had opened less than two years before on the west side of Huntsville in an area still surrounded by farms.

It would be nearly four more decades before Huntsville became Alabam

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