One hundred five years ago next Friday, on October 23, 1921, the Green Bay Packers played their first game in the American Professional Football Association — the league that would be renamed the National Football League a year later. At Hagemeister Park they beat the Minneapolis Marines 7-6 in front of about 6,000 fans. Art Schmaehl scored the touchdown. Curly Lambeau kicked the extra point. The franchise that still plays in the same Wisconsin city had its first league win.
The Packers were already two seasons old as a local club. What changed in 1921 was the membership card: Acme Packing’s J.E. Clair received the franchise on August 27, and Green Bay joined a circuit that also included the Decatur Staleys, Rock Island Independents, Chicago Cardinals and Canton Bulldogs.
Why the anniversary still matters in 2026
Every Green Bay Packers kickoff this fall — including Thursday night visitors and the Sunday window — traces back to that one-point win at Hagemeister. The Packers are the only surviving small-town charter of the early APFA era that still plays in its original city. The Marines are gone. Hagemeister Park is gone. The league name changed in 1922. The idea that a packing-plant town could belong in pro football did not.
The game: Packers 7, Marines 6
Minneapolis scored first. Ben Dvorak’s rushing touchdown in the opening quarter made it 6-0; the extra point failed. Green Bay stayed scoreless through three quarters. Late in the fourth, end Dave Hayes recovered a Marines fumble near the visitors’ 35. Halfback Buff Wagner hauled in a Curly Lambeau pass to the 14 — the first completed reception in Packers league history. Fullback Art Schmaehl finished the drive with a four-yard touchdown plunge. Lambeau’s drop-kick extra point put Green Bay ahead 7-6 and set off a celebration at Hagemeister.
Earlier in the afternoon Lambeau had also thrown the franchise’s first forward pass in a league game — an incompletion intended for end Lyle “Cowboy” Wheeler. The box score is thin by modern standards, but the firsts are clear: first league win, first league touchdown, first league reception, first league extra point.
| Quarter | Scoring play | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Ben Dvorak rush (kick failed) | MIN 6–0 |
| 4th | Art Schmaehl 4-yard rush (Curly Lambeau kick) | GNB 7–6 |
| First | Player / detail |
|---|---|
| League win | Packers 7–6 vs. Marines |
| League touchdown | Art Schmaehl, 4-yard rush |
| League reception | Buff Wagner, from Curly Lambeau |
| League extra point | Curly Lambeau drop kick |
| Head coach | Curly Lambeau |
| Venue | Hagemeister Park, Green Bay |
How Green Bay got into the league
The Packers formed in 1919 with Lambeau as captain and co-founder, backed by the Indian Packing Company and local newspaper man George Whitney Calhoun. After independent seasons that ran 19-2-1 across 1919–20, Clair of Acme Packing pressed the APFA application in late August 1921. Grandstands and bleachers went up at Hagemeister to push capacity past 3,500 before the Marines game — and the park filled beyond that on opening day.
Years later, local historian Jack Rudolph passed along an unverified story: that Green Bay’s membership was conditional and that a loss to Minneapolis might have cost the franchise its place. What is documented is simpler and still dramatic enough — a one-point home win that started the Packers’ league ledger at 1-0.
Watch the early Packers story
No game film from October 23, 1921 survives. The club’s own Legacy series reconstructs the 1919–29 decade, and a short explainer covers how the packing-plant name stuck.
What came next that fall
Seven days later Rock Island beat Green Bay 13-3 at Hagemeister — the Packers’ first league loss, and the afternoon Lambeau made the franchise’s first field goal, a 25-yard drop kick. In November the Packers rolled Evansville and Hammond, tied the Cardinals, then lost 20-0 at the Chicago Staleys in the first meeting of a rivalry that still runs every year. After the season the APFA stripped and later reinstated the franchise amid a college-player controversy; Lambeau paid the $250 fee and kept the club alive. The league took the NFL name in 1922. The Packers never left Green Bay.
For more October history on WhyNFL, read October 22, 1939: the NFL’s first televised game and October 21, 1985: The Refrigerator scores. Follow today’s Packers on our team page.
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