TEN THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT THE DAYTON TRIANGLES
1. The Dayton Triangles were an original franchise of the American Professional Football Association (now the National Football League) in 1920.
2. The Triangles were based in Dayton and took their nickname from their home field, Triangle Park (capacity 5,000), which was located at the confluence of the Great Miami and Stillwater rivers in north Dayton.
3. Many of the early Triangle football players were former athletes from St. Mary’s College (University of Dayton).
4. Dayton native Carl “Scummy” Storck was the salaried secretary of the NFL for 18 years, and then interim president for two years.
5. The salary rate for the Triangles in the 1920s was a basic $75 to $100 per game with deductions made for travel and other expenses.
6. Because of attendance problems at home, the Triangles played most of their games on the road, traveling in a rented Pullman railroad car, which served for sleeping, dining and as a locker room.
7. The Dayton Triangles were the only undefeated professional football team in the country in 1918.
8. Lou Partlow, the Triangles running back, was known for his unusual training method of practicing blocking and dodging tacklers by running through the dense woods along the Miami River and slamming into trees. He was known as the “West Carrollton battering ram.”
9. The Dayton Triangles were one of the first four teams in the National Football League.
10. The first game between two NFL teams was played here, at Triangle Park on Oct. 3, 1920. The Dayton Triangles defeated the Columbus Panhandles 14-0.
SOURCE: Nancy Horlacher, Local History Specialist, Dayton Metro Library
CLOSER LOOK AT DAYTON HISTORY PROJECTS
At its annual meeting in July, Dayton History unveiled plans for four new major exhibits that will be added to Carillon Historical Park. Beginning last week, and continuing for the two Sundays, we’ll take a closer look at each of the new initiatives. You’ll learn what each exhibit will mean for the park and for you, as a visitor. Over the past year, $4 million has been raised to fund the new projects.
LAST WEEK: The Carillon Brewing Co.
TODAY: The Dayton Triangles Locker Room
SEPT. 30: The Great Dayton Flood of 1913
OCT. 7: Photographer William Mayfield’s Private Collection
How to get involved
Those interested in getting involved with the new sports center can contact Skip Ordeman at (937) 299-9652 or MBO510@aol.com
The Miami Valley is on track to fill a void that’s been obvious to many sports lovers for years.
The Dayton Sports History Center at Carillon Park, one of four new projects unveiled recently by Dayton History, will focus on some of the region’s top historical sports-related achievements. The initial phase of the $500,000 undertaking is the renovation of a locker room that once housed members of the Dayton Triangles football team.
The historic locker room was recently moved from Triangle Park to Carillon and now sits next to Culp’s Cafe on the park grounds. In the next couple of weeks, the foundation will be poured and the building set.
“Ohio has a rich tradition of football and was a hotbed for the sport in the early days of professional football,” says Pete Fierle, manager of digital media and communications for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. “The Dayton Triangles were charter members of the National Football League, first known as the American Professional Football Association. The city fielded the franchise for the entire first decade of the league.”
The most distinctive historical note for the Dayton Triangles, he adds, is that they hosted the first game between two league teams on Oct. 3, 1920, at Triangle Park in Dayton. The Triangles beat the Columbus Panhandles 14-0.
The Triangles won’t be the only team featured at the park, according to executive director Brady Kress, who says there is a lot to celebrate. An overall plan calls for the locker room building to be incorporated into an entire sports complex.
Kress says the new center will focus mainly on Dayton’s game-changing stories, ranging from Stoddard-Dayton race cars, Huffy Olympic time trial bikes and the MacGregor golf club industry, to the Miami Valley’s Olympic medalists, the Dayton Triangles and the Dayton Marcos — one of only eight teams in the National Negro Baseball Association. It will also highlight local family diversions such as ice skating on the Miami River, badminton at Hills & Dales Park and shuffleboard at Old River. The idea is to include lots of photos, audio-visual and interactive components, as well as displayed artifacts.
“It will also have a rotating element that will allow us to feature a series of changing exhibits on seasonal teams and athletes,” he explained. For special occasions, a food and beverage area will serve traditional stadium-style fare.
How the project began
A local committee known as DASH (Dayton Area Sports History Association) has been advocating for some type of sports-related project since 2002 and has been instrumental in developing the new endeavor. Heading the committee is Skip Ordeman, who moved to town more than 50 years ago.
“I was interested in sports history and thought it was odd that in a city as big as Dayton that was so interested in sports, almost nobody had heard of the Dayton Triangles,” he recalled. When he heard that author Keith McClellan was coming from Detroit to talk about the early days of the NFL, he decided to attend the brown-bag lecture.
At the event, Ordeman met two others who shared his interests and concerns: Mark Fenner, whose great-grandfather had played for the Dayton Triangles, and Steven Presar, who had researched the history of the Triangles.
In the spring of 2002, 45 people gathered to determine the degree of interest there would be in developing an organization that would collect sports history. Carillon Park, Ordeman says, was always supportive.
“Our stated goals were to cover all sports, teams and sites with local or national impact, to complement existing exhibits and to include Montgomery and contiguous counties,” he explains. In 2004, the group hosted a salute to area Olympians, with 10 individuals making presentations including gold-medal winners Bob Schul and Edwin C. Moses. The following year, DASH hosted an exhibit titled “Wow! I Didn’t Know That About Sports in Dayton.”
When Kress instigated a long-range planning effort for the whole park, it became apparent that sports was an important area that wasn’t covered and had the potential of attracting a whole new audience to Carillon, Ordeman said. At one point it was suggested that the Triangles’ locker room, still being used for garden equipment storage at the City of Dayton’s Triangle Park, be rescued and restored.
“There had been a second locker room that had been vandalized and burned down, and we realized the building that was left was vulnerable,” Ordeman said.
The work of many people has made the new project possible, Ordeman said. Judge Daniel Gehres took the lead in getting the City of Dayton to agree to move the locker room to Carillon Park. Gehres was chairman of First Touchdown Celebration, commemorating the Triangles first game on Oct. 3, 1920.
Moving Day was a thrill for all involved. Mark Fenner arrived with camera in hand to watch as the historic building in which his great-grandfather once stood was transported to its new home at Carillon Park.
“I don’t have words for how it felt,” the Clayton man said. “The moment that was really touching for me was when the workers and police officers started talking about how cool and great this was and that it had been the Dayton Triangles locker room. I think my grandfather and all of the Triangles would be very happy and proud.”
Although Fenner never met his great-grandfather, he has heard stories about him since childhood.
“He graduated from Stivers in 1915 and had several offers to go to college and play football, but he turned them all down,” he said. “He went to work for Delco right out of high school and started playing for the Triangles in 1916.” Delco owned Triangle Park, which was made available to employees and the football team.
“I’ve come across literature that says he was the only Triangles player with the team from 1916 to 1929, when they were sold,” he said. “Relatives told me if my great-grandfather were ever in vicinity, he would make whoever was driving go down Ridge Avenue so he could show them where the field and locker room were.”
They also told him that in the ’50s, when football players started wearing hard plastic helmets, his grandfather was not happy. “He was one of these old tough guys and thought they were a bunch of wimp,” Fenner said. “They had worn leather helmets but if it got too hot, they wouldn’t wear helmets at all.”
Kress says the Locker Room will be stabilized before the end the of the year. Wilcon Corporation is doing the restoration in coordination with museum curators based on the physical and photographic evidence from 1920.
For the most part, existing buildings will be repurposed with $75,000 covering the move and restoration of the locker room. Initially, says Kress, the locker room will be interpreted from the outside with wayside exhibits. As the project evolves, exhibits will be added.
“Since it represents the beginning of the NFL, we plan also to highlight everyone from the region who made their way to the League,” he said.
Early last year, Carillon was able to copyright the name “Dayton Triangles” for use on shirts, jackets and caps. Items are already on sale at the Carillon Park gift shop and new ones are being added.
Ordeman says there is still much work to be done.
“We want people to know that now the sports center is becoming a reality, we’re hoping to get more people from the community involved. We have a $25,000 matching grant toward funding the move and renovating the locker room and currently our major organizational effort is to raise the matching dollars. We’re also looking for people who have information on sports in Dayton or who are willing to help us do the research.”
If you’re wondering what happened to the Triangles, Fierle said after a respectable start with three winning seasons, the team struggled for most of its years in the league. “By the end, Dayton had trouble attracting top teams to play them at home, so the Triangles ended up playing many games on the road,” he said. “Then, following the 1929 season, Dayton sold its franchise to Brooklyn and the team was renamed the (football) Dodgers.”
Mark Fenner says the lesson to be learned is that if history isn’t preserved, it can be lost in time. He says that almost happened to the Dayton Triangles.
“But it’s who we are and where we came from,” he said. “I feel so relieved that the locker room is now in a safe place.”
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