Green Bay Packers: Indian Packing Company

The Green Bay Packers were born on August 11, 1919 on the second floor of the old Green Bay Press Gazette building. On August 13 it was established that the Indian Packing Co. would sponsor a football team. They named it the “Packers”. Their games were to be held at Hagemeister Park. The team limit was 38 people altho they only had 20 full uniforms. Most of the team players were from East and West Green Bay high schools.

Curly Lambeau was elected team captain and George Calhoun was manager or what we know today as coach. Lambeau was a former Notre Dame, star quarterback in 1918 from Coach Rockne’s first team. Lambeau was at his first job, Indian Packing Co, while Calhoun was an editor for the company. Altho there is no evidence as it was lost

or if it never happened, but Lambeau and Calhoun founded the Packers.

The first season the Packers won 10 games and lost one(most were just nearby towns). At their home field, Hagemeister Park, was completely open, no fence or bleachers. Calhoun passed a hat around to put the players spare change in to buy other things like a fence.

Once again the Packers made their own schedule and dominated the competitors. During the same year Neil Murphy, a local typewriter salesman, became the business manager for the Packers. In August he organized a committee to build a fence around the field so they could charge admission. They finished it in September. In the middle of October they built two long bleachers so the crowd didn’t have to stand to watch the game.

On August 27, 1921 the Packers were finally accepted to play for the APFA(American Professional Football Association) which we know it today as the NFL(National Football League).

When Green Bay joined the APFA they were the smallest team. The first year with the Packers being in the APFA they had a big game coming up and they were afraid of losing so they used three players from Notre Dame’s college. The players were under assumed names. The packers got caught from using college players and got kicked out from the APFA, but because of Lambeau’s persistence and impression Green Bay made on the other teams they were reinstated at the next meeting in

June.

After just one season, a small group formed the Green Bay Football club and asked Lambeau and Calhoun to be the leaders.

The new owners of the Packers barely survived the first season with the limited resources and horrible weather. A game against Columbus Panhandles was played in a storming rain and lost, not only the game, but also lost $1,500. On Thanksgiving it rained for 12 hours and ruined what was called booster day, a non-league game against Duluth. Club officials nearly canceled the game, but Andrew Turnbull persuaded them to play,he said if they played he would rally Green Bay’s business community behind the team once the season was over, and with that he did. The Packers were now a community-owned team, and the investors were the fans. In 1927 the NFL decided to cut half of it’s franchise. Almost every small team was cut, but the Packers were lucky.

In 1929 the packers struck gold, they signed three players halfback Johnny Blood, and two linemen, Cal Hubbard and Mike Michalske. These three players latter carried the team to three straight NFL championships and land themselves into the Pro Football Hall of

Fame.

In 1931 the packers were in pursuit of winning the championship, while playing the Brooklyn Dodgers, their second game in the season, Willard Bent, a fan, injured his back when a section of the bleachers collapsed, he nearly fell 10 feet. Bent sued the Packers and received $5,000. The Packers insurance company went into bankruptcy Bent could sue for more. Somehow the Packers were able to survive long enough to be saved by two seminal events. The first event was the making of a new corporation, so Green Bay Packers inc was created in 1935. The other was a new player wide receiver Don Hutson. Second game as a pro, Hutson caught a 83 yard touchdown making it 7 to 0 against the Chicago Bears. While playing Hutson and got the Packers three more championships and after 11 years of playing Hutson had 18 records that he had broken and set.

Winner of five championships, Bart Starr impressed so many people when he retired he was asked to be head coach and general manager. In 1972 Starr made the mistake of getting the aging John Hadl, for him they lost five prime draft picks. The first three seasons with the new quarterback the packers finished 4-10, 5-9, and 4-10 again. In 1978 the Packers finished with 8-7-1, but then lost early in the playoffs. In 1982 the Packers won the championship, but the next year they beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs and were 8-8. The next game was against their rivals the Chicago Bears, sadly the packers lost 23-21 and after the game Bart Starr was fired.