On Aug. 11, 1919, a score or more husky young athletes, called together by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, gathered in the dingy editorial room of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette building on Cherry Street and organized a football team. They didn't know it, but that was the beginning of the incredible saga of the Green Bay Packers. Lambeau and Calhoun struck the initial spark a few weeks before, during a casual street-corner conversation. It was apparently a “Why not get up a football team?” remark, but once they were interested, they wasted no time.
First they talked Lambeau’s employer — a war-time industry called the Indian Packing Company, where he worked as a shipping clerk for $250/month — into putting up money for jerseys.
Because the company provided jerseys and permitted the use of its athletic field for practice, the club was identified in its early publicity as a project of the company. With this tie-in, the name “Packers” was a natural, and Packers they have been ever since, although the Indian Packing Company had practically faded out of the picture before that first season was half over.
That first season the team won 10 and lost only one, against foes from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Games were played in an open field with no fences or bleachers, and interested fans “passed the hat.”
Sept. 14 — Menominee North End A.C. (W, 53-0)
Sept. 21 — Marinette Northerners (W, 61-0)
Sept. 28 — New London (W, 54-0)
Oct. 05 — Sheboygan Company (W, 87-0)
Oct. 12 — Racine (W, 76-6)
Oct. 19 — Ishpeming (W, 33-0)
Oct. 26 — Oshkosh Professionals (W, 85-0)
Nov. 02 — Milwaukee Maple Leaf A.C. (W, 53-0)
Nov. 09 — Chicago Chilar A.C. (W, 46-0)
Nov. 16 — Stambaugh Miners (W, 17-0)
Nov. 23 — Beloit Professionals (L, 0-6)
