Pro Football in Portsmouth, Ohio
Explore the history of Spartan-Municipal Stadium and its origins in professional football in Portsmouth, Ohio. Learn how the legendary Jim Thorpe and the forgotten Jack Creasy helped build the team and organization that would become the NFL Spartans, and in time, (after being sold) were reborn as the Detroit Lions.
Visit sites across the city where key moments in local football history happened and return to the scene of the Spartans’ greatest triumphs in what was originally known as Labold Field and Universal Stadium. Complete the tour in person or virtually using the Scioto Historical mobile app and website.
Travel back in time to the 1920s and start your tour at the former site of Stanton & McMahon’s Smoke House on Chillicothe Street, opposite Government Square (today’s Roy Roger’s Esplanade). Learn about the earliest days of football in the city, when George McMahon sponsored the Portsmouth Smoke House, a semi-professional traveling football team, which was named for his popular cigar and tobacco store that doubled as a sports news center, providing local fans and bookies the latest scores by telegraph and radio.
Visit Labold Field, where Jim Thorpe, as player and coach for the Portsmouth Shoe-Steels (the city’s first fully professional team) demonstrated the possibilities of Portsmouth joining the National Football League. Learn why and how the Shoe-Steels were reorganized at a meeting in the Hotel Hurth and given the name of the Spartans and how this organization, led by Harry Snyder, secured an NFL franchise.
Relive the drama of the Iron Man Game of 1932, when Coach Potsy Clark and the Spartans defeated the world champion Green Bay Packers without making a single substitution. Look behind the scenes at the business of pro football and consider why the Spartans never turned a profit and were unable to complete the construction of their stadium. Learn how the Portsmouth Daily Times boosted professional football and backed local efforts to save the team before the franchise was sold to Detroit.
Finish your tour with a virtual or in-person visit to Spartan-Municipal Stadium and learn about the Spartan players who went onto Detroit and won the NFL Championship for the Lions in 1935. Lastly, consider the role of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) in completing the construction of the stadium as part of a larger city-owned recreational center.
Stories 7
Stanton and McMahon's Smoke House: The Beginnings of Semi-Professional Football in Portsmouth, Ohio
Portsmouth, Ohio, is renowned as a football town, a community with a deep and abiding love of the sport - a place where both team and stadium history intertwine with the early years of professional football and the National Football League. The city’s football history, like that of the sport in general, dates back to the late-nineteenth century when the game first spread throughout the colleges and towns of the Upper Ohio Valley and Midwest.
Jim Thorpe and the Shoe-Steels: Portsmouth, Ohio's First Professional Football Team
In Portsmouth, Ohio, the birth of professional football involved one of America’s greatest athletes of all time — Jim Thorpe — and one of the city’s most forgotten civic leaders — Jack Creasy. Jim Thorpe’s one season in the city as the player-coach of the Shoe-Steels (the precursor of the Spartans), helped build the local support needed for Portsmouth’s entrance into the National Football League (NFL). Jack Creasy, on the other hand, was the Portsmouth native and high school athletic star who managed the Shoe-Steels and brought Jim Thorpe out of retirement to play for Portsmouth. Together, Creasy and Thorpe would help give rise to the Portsmouth Spartans (and what is now the Detroit Lions).
The Birth of the NFL Spartans at the Hotel Hurth
On August 20th, 1928, Portsmouth, Ohio football fans and civic leaders gathered at the Hotel Hurth for a dinner meeting and the launch of a new professional football venture. The meeting came just…
NFL Spartans Business Office in the Royal Savings & Loan Building: Harry N. Snyder and the Business of Pro Football in Portsmouth, Ohio
Room 25 on the second floor of the Royal Savings & Loan Company Building on Gallia Street was once the location of the business office of the NFL Spartans.
Spartan-Municipal Stadium: Original Home of the NFL Spartans (Detroit Lions)
The drive to build a sports stadium in Portsmouth, Ohio, was first launched in 1925, when the city's civic clubs all backed a city-wide referendum to construct a city-owned recreational center, which in addition to supporting local amateur and high school sports, could also serve as the home to professional football and baseball teams. The funding and construction of the stadium and larger recreational facilities would ultimately take a decade to complete, when the enterprise was finally finished by the Works Progress Administration in 1936.
The Iron Man Game of 1932: The NFL Spartans Defeat the Green Bay Packers in the Greatest Football Game in Portsmouth Sports History
On Sunday, 4 December 1932, the reigning NFL champion Green Bay Packers faced off the Portsmouth Spartans in what has come to be popularly known as the Iron Man Game. Played in Portsmouth’s Universal Stadium (now known as Spartan Municipal Stadium), interest in the game ran so high that city authorities brought in the National Guard for crowd control. The league’s 1932 championship hung in the balance and the prospects for professional football in smaller cities like Portsmouth and Green Bay were being put to the test.
Peerless Portsmouth and Detroit, the City of Champions: How the Portsmouth Spartans Helped the Detroit Lions Win the 1935 NFL Championship
The Portsmouth Spartans enhanced their rich NFL history when they moved to Detroit in 1934, became the Detroit Lions and won the 1935 NFL Championship. That Lions team was part of an amazing more than two dozen 1935 world and national sports champions hailing from the Motor City. In 1935, Detroit was truly "The City of Champions."Tour curated by: Andrew Feight, Ph.D.