Is This Heaven?
If You Go
The drive isn’t terrible, a little over seven hours. Convenient flights go through Chicago through American Airlines from CVG to Dubuque and you’ll be there by early afternoon.
The widest choices for lodging are in Dubuque, although anywhere in the area is going to be about a 20-30 minute (or more) drive to the baseball site.
Once you’ve finished your visit, stop by downtown Dyersville and visit their antique shops, take a selfie in front of one of the downtown baseball murals, and drop in for lunch at the Textile Brewing Company, 146 2nd Street Northeast for craft beer and flatbreads.
The Field of Dreams movie site is free to visit, but they gratefully take donations to keep the place operating. You can stay overnight at the three-bedroom farmhouse (rates start at $500), reserve the Event Center barn and rent out the original baseball field for yourself, your family and friends ($150/hour).
Visit https://www.fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com/ for more information.
There may not be another movie location, not even the house in Cleveland from “A Christmas Story” or Connecticut’s “Mystic Pizza” that has captured tourists’ imagination quite like Dyersville, Iowa and “Field of Dreams.” The 1989 movie still resonates with baseball fans, especially those who remember playing ‘catch’ with a parent in the back yard.
Reds fans got a unique look at the location for the second MLB “Field of Dreams” game on August 11, when the Reds played the Cubs. While the Reds technically were the home team, Cubs blue was the dominant color-the Cubs have ties to Iowa through their Triple A affiliate, the Iowa Cubs, who play in Des Moines. And, with Chicago being a 3-4 hour drive, it was within easy reach of Cubbie fans.
First, some history: The Iowa Film Commission helped select the site of the “Field of Dreams” baseball diamond, about four miles outside of Dyersville, which itself is about 25 miles west of Dubuque. The movie was shot at the farm where the baseball diamond was constructed, along with Dubuque and nearby Galena, Illinois.
Where the major league baseball diamond is set up is about two football fields away from the farmhouse and original diamond used in the movie. The farmhouse usually is open for tours (it wasn’t during the MLB visit) and nearby barns are used for event centers and merchandise sales. By the way, the 2021 “Field of Dreams” game between the Yankees and White Sox brought in about 20,000 visitors for an 8,000 seat ballpark and had an economic impact of around $6 million.
For baseball fans and movie buffs, the visit is truly magical. Parents and their kids can spend the afternoon playing catch on the original movie field and walk through the cornfields that are still next door. (Fun Fact: The corn grown at the site is now used to brew booze. Drew Storen, a former Reds pitcher, is behind the Field of Dreams Whiskey Company. On the same day as the Reds-Cubs game, the company released its Triple Play canned cocktail of corn whiskey and Arnold Palmer mix, using distilled corn from the Field of Dreams site.)
You enter the area at the original movie site, just in front of the baseball diamond. To get to the MLB diamond, fans HAVE to walk through the cornfields-the walk featured cutouts of Reds and Cubs players, and music from the movie. Makes for endless photo-taking opportunities.
Unfortunately, there won’t be another chance to attend an MLB game there in the near future. In September 2021, baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas and his business partners purchased a controlling interest in Go the Distance, LLC., the movie site's ownership. The agreement calls for Thomas to serve as chief executive officer and former MLB general manager Dan Evans to be chief operating officer.
As part of their purchase, the ownership group announced an $80 million plan to expand the site, including nine new diamonds, a youth player dorm and a new hotel. In addition, Travel Dubuque and a new non-profit have floated plans to build a permanent MLB ballpark there (the site of the last two games is temporary). The ballpark would cost around $50 million and would also be used for concerts, summer ball, college tournaments and the like. With all of this, the movie site would remain intact but construction will keep MLB away for at least a year.
Ironically, that was the original plan for that area. Denise Stillman, her husband and son traveled to the movie site from their home in Oak Lawn, Illinois back in 2010 and after their visit, she had the idea to turn the area into a youth sports complex. She bought the land in 2012 and lobbied MLB to play a game there to promote the idea of a youth baseball complex. Unfortunately, Denise passed away in 2018 and didn’t get to see her own “Field of Dreams” come true. But everything she wanted to happen is indeed happening, from the MLB game to plans for the youth sports complex.
The site is the host of a number of special events, including Ghost Player games and, at the end of August, an American Cornhole Organization (ACO) three-day tournament. Cincinnati’s Frank Geers is behind the event, featuring an open-to-anyone competition as well as an invite-only tournament for the ACO’s top 40 players. Find out more at https://americancornhole.com/field-of-dreams/.
– Betsy Ross