The following is an excerpt from “The Green and Gold Standard: A People’s History of the Green Bay Packers” by Thomas Nelson and published by Triumph Books. The book is due out Sept. 1 and is available for preorder here. Nelson serves as Outagamie County executive and is a former Wisconsin Assembly majority leader.
Chapter 5, “A New Home” (Edited for brevity)
Even as the NFL was entering its 37th season it remained a nascent league. Teams weren’t making a lot of money, football continued to struggle against more popular sports like baseball, and 39 states were without a club. The Packers’ stadium referendum of 1956 would quickly become about more than just the Packers and Green Bay. It would portend the survival of the NFL. If the Packers’ stadium effort failed, it would undermine league momentum to expand and grow. This wasn’t only about keeping the Packers in Green Bay but keeping the “National” in the National Football League.
Unlike every other team in the league, Green Bay did not have a pro stadium because it was the only NFL city without a major league baseball team. All others played on their hometown baseball team’s field. So, the five-time champs—who had settled for a glorified high school field—were always disadvantaged with low box office sales cutting into both the Packers’ and the away team’s take-home share. In 1955, the Packers made $261,000 on the road; visiting teams made only $161,000, which would have been even lower had the Packers not twice played at Milwaukee County Stadium. This was the league’s central and perennial argument for moving the team to the bigger city to the south.
Capacity at opponents’ stadiums dwarfed tiny City Stadium. The Bears’ Wrigley Field seated 47,000, the Giants’ Polo Grounds allowed 55,000, and the Browns’ Cleveland Municipal Field had a whopping 78,000. It wasn’t until 1953 that the era of publicly financed stadiums truly got underway. This was the year Milwaukee County Stadium opened for the Braves, the National League baseball team newly relocated from Boston. County Stadium was the first-ever wholly publicly financed stadium—every dollar and bond note came from the public treasury. It was constructed ahead of any commitment from a team to move to Milwaukee. City elders were resolved to bring pro baseball to Brew City, and a shiny new stadium was certainly an incentive for pro sports owners. It had been about 25 years since the NFL’s Badgers folded up in 1926, and on-and-off Packers games surely whetted the appetite of pro sports fans.
Football fans demanded stadiums, and a franchise’s long-term viability was dependent on these concrete cathedrals. Before big-time television broadcasting contracts, tickets were the only source of revenue for clubs. With varying seating capacities and wide-ranging ticket prices came grave financial disparities among clubs—Green Bay was Exhibit A. “They needed a new stadium, or they would be left behind,” said team historian Cliff Christl. In August of 1955, Packers executive board member Fred Leicht announced the club’s intention to build one. An original stockholder from the 1923 sale, the stadium committee chair teamed up with the Green Bay school board to build a “new steel stadium” on the current stadium footprint next to East High School. Mayor Otto Rachals, whose city council would need to approve placing a referendum on the ballot, signaled support by announcing forthcoming architectural plans and cost estimates. The Press-Gazette understood the time was fraught with uncertainty; the paper characterized the moment as simply “A Test for the Packers.”
By January 1956, little progress had been made on a new stadium. At an impasse, the mayor created an ad hoc citizens committee charged with making a recommendation to the council on the “type and location of a new Packer stadium.” The committee developed and considered four different proposals with different combinations of permanent and movable seats and locations, at either the current site or Perkins Park on the west side. Estimated costs ranged from $500,000 to $1,172,000. On February 2, the citizens committee recommended building anew at a separate location that included 20,000 permanent seats at a price of $960,000 to be paid 50-50 between the city and team. Twelve thousand auxiliary movable seats would be used for Packers games and taken down for the smaller high school matchups. The committee, however, was split on where to build it.
On March 6, 1956, the Green Bay city council voted unanimously to hold a tax referendum on the following month on April 3. It was a short turnaround. Spring election ballots were usually set by the first Tuesday of January when candidacy papers are due, with absentee ballots going out three weeks before Election Day. (Wisconsinites have been voting absentee since Abraham Lincoln sought re-election in 1864.) Perhaps the decision was made late for strategic reasons; a successful referendum was not considered a lock. “One wouldn’t believe that you’d have to do it, but it did take a referendum because the people thought it would raise their taxes,” added board member Jerry Atkinson. An analysis by the Press-Gazette soon after the campaign got underway showed the average property tax bill bumping up just $1.35 per year ($16.19 in current dollars).
Unlike Brock and others, Coach Blackbourn was bullish. Having delivered countless halftime pep talks, he rallied the Green Bay faithful: “It looks like a tough battle… This is no half-way program; it’s either for or against the squad.” A committee of 30 eager backers organized the “Vote Yes” campaign. Thousands of pamphlets were designed, printed, and distributed, enough for each voter. A little shoe leather and door knocking did the rest. The literature and face-to-face campaigning ginned up all range of conversation: “[T]he big topics are the stadium, money, taxes, television, crowds, parking and 101 other subjects all relating to construction of a new stadium,” reported the Press-Gazette on March 27. Talk was indicative of the public debate to come, should the measure pass. That people were thinking ahead was a good sign. On election eve, Packer backers packed the Columbus Club–once again. More than 1,000 fans joined the delirium. It all paid off. Fans passed the million-dollar referendum on a near two-to-one margin. Crucial to the measure’s passage—in addition to the truncated campaign and no organized opposition—was a question that excluded sticky specifics: “Shall the City of Green Bay issue its General Obligation Bonds in an amount not to exceed $960,000 for the purpose of providing a stadium for said City?” Where to build it would be decided after the election
