Dayton Triangles

National Football League (1920-1929)

Tombstone

Born: September 17, 1920 – American Professional Football Association (NFL from 1922) founding franchise¹
Moved: July 12, 1930 (Brooklyn Dodgers)²

First Game: October 3, 1920 (W 14-0 vs. Columbus Panhandles)
Last Game: November 24, 1929 (L 19-0 @ Chicago Cardinals)

NFL Championships: None

Stadium

Triangle Park
Opened: August 5, 1916³

Marketing

Team Colors: Blue & White

Ownership

Charles Kettering, Edward Deeds

Background

The Dayton Triangles were a charter member of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) in 1920. Two years later, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League (NFL).

Downtown Dayton in the 1920s — *A swell picture of downtown Dayton in the 1920s*

For 10 seasons, the Triangles represented the Gem City in the NFL. Pro football history buffs in the area will tell you that Dayton was not only home to one of the charter members of the NFL but also hosted the first game between league members.

NFL beginnings

The APFA was formed on September 17, 1920, in the showroom of the Jordan & Hupmobile auto dealership, owned by Ralph Hay, in Canton, Ohio. The Triangles were present along with representatives from Canton (Hay), Rochester, Rock Island, IL., Muncie, IN, Decatur, IL., Racine, WI., Hammond, IN., Cleveland, and Akron.⁴

Charles Kettering

The Triangles had been playing for a number of years already as members of the semi-pro Ohio League, winning that loop’s championship in 1918. The team’s early rosters drew mostly from three local factories, which in turn inspired the nickname Triangles. Those facilities were operated by the Dayton Metal Products Company, the Domestic Engineering Company, and the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO). Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds, who owned the latter, also owned the football team.

In 1916, Kettering and Deeds bought the Idylwild estate of Daniel Eldridge Mead (off of paper) and a larger adjacent tract to save it from development. They then created Triangle Park, complete with a 5,000-seat stadium, which became the football team’s home field.⁵

The APFA was designed to establish a top-level, professional league for the sport of gridiron football, which was gaining in popularity, particularly at the collegiate level. Most of the APFA’s charter members had been playing games on a mostly ad hoc basis. A league allowed these regional teams to easily schedule games against each other and to eliminate costly bidding wars between teams for players.

First ever NFL game

On October 3, 1920, the APFA hosted its first game between two league members as the Dayton Triangles hosted the Columbus Panhandles at Triangle Park in front of a reported 4,000 fans. After a scoreless first half, Dayton’s Lou Partlow scored a touchdown from 7 yards out for what turned out to be the winning score. In the fourth quarter, the Triangles’ Frank Bacon returned a punt 60 yards for a touchdown. Final score: Dayton 14, Columbus 0.

Dayton Triangles pro Football Apparel

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In that first APFA season, league members continued to play clubs outside of the association. For example, on October 31, 1920, the Triangles met the Cincinnati Celts, who joined the APFA the following year but were not in the league at the time.

Dayton Triangles team photo 1920 — *The 1920 Dayton Triangles*

On June 24, 1922, the APFA became the National Football League (NFL).⁶ Through the rest of the decade, multiple teams came and went. The Triangles managed to hang on, though their on-field performance diminished.

They went 5-2-2 in 1920 and 4-4-1 the following season. In 1922, they notched a record of 4-3-1, their last winning campaign. As other teams signed talent from all over, and paid competitive salaries, the Triangles stuck with local talent and ultimately paid the price, as it were. After the 1927 season, they became a road team as they were unable to draw enough fans to Triangle Park to turn a profit.

The financial situation went from bad to worse, and on July 12, 1930, the team was sold to a syndicate from Brooklyn led by Bill Dwyer and Jack Depler.⁷ They renamed the team the Brooklyn Dodgers and moved it into Ebbets Field, home of the baseball team of the same name. The duo essentially bought the Triangles spot in the league, as the Dodgers’ 1930 roster consisted of free agents and rookies, with no former Triangles making the move east. As such, the NFL does not consider the Dodgers to be a continuation of the Triangles franchise. That distinction becomes important later, as well.

Triangle Park 1920s — *Dayton’s Triangle Park circa 1920*

Just before the start of the 1933 season, on August 22, Dwyer and Depler sold the team to Chris Cagle and John “Shipwreck” Kelley, star players with the New York Football Giants.⁸ The two paid $30,000 for the club and became player/owners.⁹ On June 30, 1934, Cagle sold his stake to Daniel Topping, a pro golfer and ”social registrite,” according to a story from the United Press.¹⁰Topping eventually became sole owner of the club.

Some have tried to connect the Triangles to today’s Indianapolis Colts, but there are several broken links in that chain, starting with the aforementioned 1930 team roster. Secondly, the franchise left the NFL entirely in 1946.

Due to a player shortage caused by World War II, the Dodgers, who had become the Tigers in 1944, merged with the Boston Yanks, making Topping partners with that team’s owner, Ted Collins. After the war, Topping wanted to re-establish his team and move it into Yankee Stadium. New York Football Giants owner Tim Mara, however, blocked the move.¹¹

In 1946, Topping, who had purchased a stake in the Yankees baseball team a year earlier, pulled the football Dodgers out of the NFL and joined the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC).¹² The team was renamed the New York Yankees and played in the most famous ballpark in the world, Yankee Stadium.

The AAFC only lasted four seasons. In December, 1949, the NFL took in three of its surviving seven teams, the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts. The latter lasted only one year in the NFL. The football Yankees were not included in the merger. Instead, the Yankee players were folded into the roster of the NFL New York Bulldogs, owned by Ted Collins. They were renamed the New York Yanks in 1950.

After the 1951 season, Collins sold the franchise back to the NFL.¹³ A group of businessmen from Texas subsequently bought the Yanks’ roster and other assets to form a new team called the Dallas Texans. That team lasted only one year, as the owners ran out of money before the season ended, forcing them to surrender the franchise to the league.¹⁴ Less than a month after the conclusion of the1952 season, the league sold the franchise to a group from Maryland, who started a new Baltimore Colts franchise.¹⁵ That team moved to Indianapolis in 1984, where they remain to this day. While their uniforms look similar to the Triangles, the teams are not connected.

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Dayton triangles logo T-Shirt

The Dayton Triangles were founding members of the AFPA in 1920, the league that became the NFL two years later. The Triangles were sold in 1930 and became the Brooklyn Dodgers.

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Dayton Triangles

Tombstone

Stadium

Marketing