The Tri-Cities were a prime football market with local Tri-Cities College becoming a powerhouse on the collegiate level. Thus, the Tri-Cities Black Hawks were formed in 1919 as an inaugural team in the AA, playing their games across the river from Tri-Cities College in Davenport, Iowa. They survived through that catastrophe of a league and independent leagues for another 6 years with relatively poor play, and got invited to the MWFC as charter members. They struggled for a while, and were on the verge of folding when the Depression hit Davenport hard. The team was saved in 1934 by local real estate magnate Bert Hester, who bought the team at the behest of his old friend Donovan Hasenkamp. He made two large changes to the team, the first was the shortening of the name to just the Hawks, and the second was finally bringing the team some sort of success. He brought former Detroit Knights executives to help him scout talent the same way they did it back in the Motor City, and it instantly ...
Cincinnati is one of the newer teams in the AFL, with the team starting play in the MWFC’s inaugural 1926 as an expansion team. Football had already existed in Cincinnati for a bit, with its original team, the Warriors, briefly playing in the final season of the AA, but folded only a few years later due to poor play and financial instability. The city’s lack of success didn’t stop the Championship from still wanting a team there, and local steamboat businessman Dennis Delaney took charge and named his team the Rivermen after his operations that helped the city grow to what it is now. They got off to an incredibly great start, finishing runner-up in 1931 and 1933, before finally winning it all in the MWFC’s first ever championship game. Since then, they’ve been on the decline, having moderate success in the latter half of the 30’s (making only 1 more championship appearance in the decade), but quickly falling off in the early 40’s. They’ve climbed back to a more mediocre position in the...
Unlike their expansion brethren, St. Louis owner Arthur Dixon knew exactly what to name the team. Dixon is a high-ranking executive within Anheuser-Busch, and a good friend of St Louis Brewers owner and lead executive Gussie Busch. The last team that was in town, the St. Louis Arrows, was fairly successful in bringing in fans but the financials were never right, with PAFC president Virgil Bradshaw controversially merging them with the Kansas City team and leaving the city without a pro football team. Busch immediately stepped up to bring the sport back into town, and gave Dixon the funds needed to get an expansion team in the AFL. Busch gave only three requirements, that for Dixon to fully run the team, the team had to represent his company in some way, and that they played in Busch Stadium along with the Brewers. Dixon would then announce to the press the name of the new St. Louis team: the St. Louis Stallions. The team would be named after the Clydesdale horses that would travel arou...
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