Forty-five years ago, in December 1979, Ron Ames led Ames Construction in the excavation for the Metrodome stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “That’s my claim to fame,” Ron would later say.
Some 80 companies participated in construction of the Metrodome, and most of the labor was performed by Minnesota construction workers. The high-visibility project exposed Ames Construction to a network of general contractors and engineers for future projects.
“The field level of the stadium was about 40 feet below street grade, right down to the bedrock, and we used air hammers to remove the rock for the baseball dugouts,” recalled Jay Loffler. “We had a big air compressor to run the air hammer, and it was so cold that sometimes I would climb into the air compressor and pull the doors shut just to get warm.”
After the dugouts were built, the workers realized that they had forgotten to jackhammer out the trenches needed for the plumbing lines. “At that point, you couldn’t get equipment in anymore,” Jay recalled. “Terry Brennan and I spent three days using rock drills to loosen the bedrock and jack-hammered the trenches by hand.”
Kevin Jackson remembered other challenging aspects of the job. At one point, he was laboring with John “Bud” Brennan. “We wore out two-by-fours doing the fine grading on the lower bleachers that were poured on the steep slopes,” Kevin said.
Everything had to be string-lined to within a half of an inch before workers could pour the concrete. “Every darn pair of pants that I owned was worn through in the knees by the time we finished,” Kevin added. It was difficult to simply walk from the bottom to the top of the slope. “Bud was in his 50s by then, but he hung right in there—he was one tough guy. I have a lot of respect for him.”
Thirty-four years later, Ames crews performed the demolition of the Metrodome, followed by excavation and site work to help build U.S. Bank Stadium.
