Did you know the first NFL game was played in Dayton?
As the nation prepares for Super Bowl LVIII, here's a little local NFL trivia. Did you know Dayton was the site of the first game in the NFL?
Did you know the first NFL game was played in Dayton?
The very first game of what is now known as the NFL was played right here in Dayton at Triangle Park.
Triangle Park was home to the Dayton Triangles, one of the original teams of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) which was to later to become the National Football League (NFL). In the first game of the APFA at Triangle Park, on October 3, 1920, the Dayton Triangles defeated the Columbus (Ohio) Panhandles 14-0. Dayton finished the 1920 season going 5-2-2 while Columbus went 2-6-2. In 1922, the Association changed its name to the National Football League (NFL).
In 2004, the Ohio Historical Society erected an Ohio Historical Marker at Triangle Park in their honor. The marker reads as follows:
"On October 3, 1920 the first game matching two professional teams of the American Professional Football Association, a league that would become the National Football League (NFL), was held on this field within Triangle Park. In that game, the Dayton Triangles defeated the Columbus Panhandles 14-0. The Triangle's Lou Partlow scored the first touchdown and George "Hobby" Kinderdine kicked the first extra point. Three factories founded by Dayton business-men Edward Deeds and Charles Kettering sponsored the Dayton Triangles team. The factories were the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO), Dayton Metal Products Company (D.M.P.Co.), and Domestic Engineering Company (DECO), later call Delco-Light. They formed an industrial triangle of plants in downtown Dayton."
