The Chicago Fire stadium saga has gone on for a while. But on October 8th it finally came to a close. On the same day as the club’s 22nd anniversary and the 148th anniversary of the fire that the club was named after, an official announcement was made: the Chicago Fire would be playing at Soldier Field for the foreseeable future. But this is not where the story starts or even ends.
The story starts back in 2004, when upon returning to a newly renovated Soldier Field after a couple of seasons at Cardinal Stadium in Naperville, then Chicago Fire General Manager Peter Wilt began to put work into getting a soccer-specific stadium built in the Chicago-land area.