NOW ON VIEW IN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Football in Minneapolis Before the Vikings
Minnesota's getting ready for a pretty big football game (ahem, Super Bowl 2018) and the library is no exception. Visit Special Collections at the Minneapolis Central Library to learn more about football in Minneapolis before the Vikings, a mini-exhibit featuring high school, college, amateur, and professional teams, on view now through February 2018.
The Marines and the Red Jackets
The Minneapolis Marines was the city’s first professional football team, formed by local businessmen and consisting mainly of working class high school-age players. It was an independent team, which is to say it barnstormed around the city playing other city squads, with names such as the Beavers, the Powderhorns, the Deans, the Quicksteps, the Rosedales and Preins. The Marines did some traveling to play other teams, but after WWI, the Marines official joined the recently formed American Professional Football Association (APFA) in 1921. The following year, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League. The Marines did not last long with the NFL, folding after the 1924 season. A second attempt was made with the NFL in 1929 with the formation of the Minneapolis Red Jackets, but again to no avail. The team drew poorly and the Great Depression was settling in.
Professional football was a comparatively minor affair in those days, vastly out stripped in popularity by the college game, which drew enormous crowds, filling the huge new football fields being constructed in the 1920s, like the University of Minnesota’s Memorial Stadium.
More on Minneapolis football history from the Star Tribune.
View more football photos in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.
