In the summer of 2017 when the Houston Astros have emerged as a World Series contender, it seems appropriate to examine the construction of the Houston Astrodome, which put Houston baseball on the national radar screen in 1965. Although Houston was awarded a Major League franchise in 1962 as the Colt .45s, it was the unveiling of the Astrodome that allowed the city and team, known as the Astros since 1965, to embrace the modern world and move beyond frontier images. Hyped as “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Astrodome's rise and fall is chronicled by academics Robert C. Trumpbour and Kenneth Womack in a volume that is accessible to the general reader. However, readers seeking a history of Astros baseball in Houston will be disappointed as the focus of the authors is upon the Astrodome itself, including the political deals and engineering innovations necessary for the construction of the domed stadium as well as the structure's decline and proposed demolition. Relying primarily upon newspaper archival research and interviews with living participants in the drama of Houston's domed stadium, Trumpbour and Womack do a solid job of tracing the rise and decline of the Astrodome, although there is some chronological overlap in the chapters that could perhaps use some editing.
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