Historic Dodgertown 2026 Visitor Guide — Vero Beach, Florida

Historic Dodgertown occupies a converted World War II Naval Air Station site in Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida, and stands as one of the most historically documented civil rights landmarks in American professional baseball. From 1948 through the 2008 spring training season, the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers operated their spring training complex there — a tenure spanning more than 60 years, as recorded by the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. The site is now operated by Major League Baseball under the name Jackie Robinson Training Complex (JRTC), a designation MLB made official in 2019.

The complex earned its place in the national civil rights record on March 31, 1948, when the first racially integrated spring training game in the South was played there, with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella among the participants, as documented by the Walter O'Malley Official Website. The State of Florida recognized that significance with a Florida Heritage Landmark designation on November 10, 2014, and the U.S. Civil Rights Trail added the complex to its national network in 2019. Today the JRTC functions as a youth baseball and softball development hub, hosting tournaments administered under MLB's programming umbrella while preserving the physical fabric of the original Dodgertown campus.

The facility's origins trace to 1948, when Vero Beach business leader Bud Holman persuaded the Brooklyn Dodgers — then led by president Branch Rickey — to establish a permanent spring training complex on the decommissioned Naval Air Station site. The Society for American Baseball Research documents Holman's central role in attracting the franchise and Rickey's deliberate selection of the location as a place where the club's integrated roster could be housed, fed, and recreated together, as described in the SABR journal. The Dodgers christened the property Dodgertown.

On March 31, 1948, a racially integrated spring training game — the first such game played in the South — took place at the complex, with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella among those in uniform, according to the Walter O'Malley Official Website. Beyond the playing field, the Walter O'Malley site documents that Dodgertown was the first MLB spring training facility in the South to provide integrated housing, dining, and recreation for all players regardless of race — a structural integration that preceded broader legal desegregation by years. The Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles following the 1957 season but continued training in Vero Beach, departing only after the 2008 spring training season.

Following the Dodgers' departure, Major League Baseball assumed the lease and eventually renamed the facility. The U.S. Civil Rights Trail lists the complex as one of the landmark sites in its national network, noting the 2014 Florida Heritage Landmark designation and the 2019 addition to the trail. The MLB press release announcing the renaming cited MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and a statement from Peter O'Malley, son of the franchise's longtime owner, in connection with the designation.

The centerpiece of the Jackie Robinson Training Complex is Holman Stadium, a ballpark built in 1953 and named in honor of Bud Holman, the Vero Beach civic leader who facilitated the Dodgers' arrival. The stadium is documented with a capacity of 6,500, according to the December 2024 MLB-Musco partnership press release. During the Dodgers' tenure, Holman Stadium hosted generations of spring training games open to the public. After the Dodgers' departure following the 2008 season, the stadium continued to serve as the primary competition venue when MLB assumed operational control.

The wider complex retains the physical character of the original Dodgertown campus, which was developed on the grounds of the former World War II Naval Air Station. The site encompasses multiple baseball and softball diamonds beyond Holman Stadium, supporting the multi-field format required by youth tournament programming. A historical marker commemorating the complex's civil rights significance is documented by the U.S. Civil Rights Trail as located on site. The former Dodgertown Golf Club, a separate adjacent property, was sold by the City of Vero Beach to Indian River County and repurposed as a walking trail, as reported by Vero News in November 2025.

Under Major League Baseball's operational stewardship, the Jackie Robinson Training Complex functions primarily as a youth baseball and softball development campus, with Holman Stadium serving as the competition centerpiece. The complex hosts several named tournaments under the MLB Develops programming umbrella. As documented in the December 2024 MLB-Musco press release, these include the Hank Aaron Invitational, the Nike RBI World Series, the Breakthrough Series, the Elite Development Invitational, and the Andre Dawson Classic.

The Andre Dawson Classic merits particular note for its connection to the site's civil rights heritage: the tournament is an HBCU baseball competition that, according to Black College Nines, relocated to the JRTC and was broadcast live on MLB Network in 2024. Participating institutions in the 2024 edition included Alabama State, Florida A&M, Grambling State, Prairie View A&M, Southern, and North Carolina A&T. The tournament's placement at a civil rights landmark — on fields where integration in Southern professional baseball began in 1948 — connects the HBCU competition explicitly to the site's documented history.

Visitors to the complex encounter a landscape shaped by both its preservation status and its active programming. The on-site historical marker documented by the U.S. Civil Rights Trail provides interpretive context at the grounds. The complex is one of the named attractions on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, placing it within a national network of sites that the Trail organization documents as significant to the movement's history.

In December 2024, Major League Baseball and the Jackie Robinson Training Complex announced a partnership with Musco Sports Lighting to install a new custom-designed stadium lighting and special-effects system at Holman Stadium. The Business Wire press release dated December 17, 2024 describes the system as designed to modernize the facility for youth development programming and enhance the game-day experience at the historic stadium. The Musco installation represents one of the more substantial documented capital investments at the complex since MLB assumed operations.

Also in 2024, the Andre Dawson Classic relocated to the JRTC and received MLB Network broadcast coverage, as reported by Black College Nines. The tournament's move to Vero Beach elevated the profile of the HBCU competition within MLB's programming calendar.

On the surrounding property, Vero News reported in November 2025 that the former Dodgertown Golf Club parcel — sold by the City of Vero Beach to Indian River County — had been repurposed as a walking trail rather than retained for storm-debris storage, following damage from Hurricane Milton-spawned tornadoes in October 2024. That land-use disposition removes the adjacent golf property from the broader Dodgertown footprint permanently. Bed tax revenue in Indian River County was up 18.8 percent in calendar year 2025 over calendar year 2024, as reported by Vero Beach 32963 in February 2026, reflecting broader visitor interest that encompasses the JRTC alongside other documented cultural draws.

The Jackie Robinson Training Complex sits within Vero Beach, the county seat of Indian River County on Florida's Treasure Coast, approximately 85 miles southeast of Orlando. According to the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023, Vero Beach has a population of 16,785 and a median age of 52.6. The city was originally incorporated on June 10, 1919, as the City of Vero, and re-incorporated as the City of Vero Beach in 1925 when the Florida Legislature created Indian River County, as documented by the City of Vero Beach Historic Preservation pages.

The JRTC functions as one anchor of a documented cultural tourism infrastructure. Riverside Theatre, located at 3250 Riverside Park Drive and affiliated with the Actors' Equity Association and the League of Resident Theatres, has operated for more than 50 years and is one of the few professional regional theatres on Florida's Treasure Coast, per the theatre's own website. McKee Botanical Garden is documented in regional journalism as an additional visitor draw. Together with the JRTC, these institutions form the core of the cultural economy that the Vero Beach 32963 reported in February 2026 as contributing to sustained and growing visitor interest in the destination.

The City of Vero Beach maintains a Historic Preservation program documented on the official city website at covb.org, providing an institutional framework within which the Dodgertown site's local preservation significance is recognized alongside the state-level Florida Heritage Landmark designation and its national position on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.