On summer nights in Huntingburg, the lights at 203 South Cherry Street still pull people toward the old grandstand. League Stadium opened in 1894, a community ballpark that has anchored games and gatherings for generations. Nearly a century later it found a new role when Columbia Pictures arrived to renovate and expand the park in 1991 for A League of Their Own, the film that premiered the next year and turned a small Indiana field into a place people recognized across the country. The movie work did more than freshen the paint.

It left a living set. Original period advertisements from the shoot still line the outfield fence, so every game since has unfolded against a nostalgic backdrop that links local memories to a larger American story about baseball and opportunity. Tours invite visitors to walk the aisles and stand where the Rockford Peaches took the field on camera. League Stadium’s film story continued when HBO returned in the fall of 1995 to film Soul of the Game, bringing the history of the Negro Leagues to a national audience through a Dubois County location.

That blend of hometown pride and national storytelling helped the city embrace preservation as part of everyday life at the park. Baseball life never stopped here. The stadium is home to the Dubois County Bombers, who played in the Ohio Valley League for a decade and returned to the Prospect League beginning with the 2024 season. The park also hosts Southridge High School baseball and other events that keep the stands full and the field in regular use.

The result is a site that feels as local as a Friday night game and as widely known as the film that remade it. If League Stadium proves anything, it is that a place built for neighbors can become part of national culture, then return the favor by bringing people back to a small Indiana town. The lights come on, the crowd gathers, and Dubois County’s story continues, nine innings at a time.