GREEN BAY – As the Green Bay Packers celebrate their 100th season of football, it’s important to remember the role the Green Bay Press-Gazette played in their history, columnist Pete Dougherty writes.
In August 1919, the Packers were founded in the Press-Gazette offices. And for the next 30 years, much of the team’s business was conducted in those offices by the newspaper’s employees.
George Whitney Calhoun, a reporter, editor and columnist who tirelessly promoted the team, and Andrew Turnbull, the paper’s publisher who on several occasions saved the team financially, were of particular importance to the Packers’ survival.
The Press-Gazette’s role in later years involved pushing for a new stadium in the early 1950s and promoting the team’s 1950 stock sale, which raised more than $100,000.
Cliff Christl, a former Packers beat writer and sports editor for the Press-Gazette who now serves as the team’s official historian, said there’s no denying the small-town newspaper’s essential role in Packers.
“No Press-Gazette, no Packers,” Christl said.
