1917 Tonawanda,NY Professional Football Postcards

[clamendo]

The All-Tonawanda Lumberjacks began playing games in 1916 as the All-Tonawanda All-Stars. Tonawanda, NY is a large suburb of Buffalo,NY. They played their home games on the Tonawanda High School field, sometimes drawing up to 3,500 fans for a contest.

They were part of the New York Professional League. The Ohio League and the New York Professional League formed the American Professional Football League in 1920 which became the NFL in 1922. Tonawanda went 7-1 in 1920 against a combination of independent teams and franchises from the American Professional Football Association teams. Based on their success, the team joined the APFA in 1921 (the first year the league kept official standings) as the Tonawanda Kardex (their sponsor).

Records from the National Professional Football Researchers Association show that the Kardex were admitted along with the Minneapolis Marines, Evansville Crimson Giants and Green Bay Packers, while membership bids from Davenport, Iowa, and Gary, Ind., were denied. The cost to enter the league was $50. In 1922, the APFA became the NFL and the franchise fee went to $1000.

Tonawanda was considered a travel team, along with some of others. They played an exhibition game against the Syracuse Pros 0-0. Their only official game was a 45-0 loss to the Rochester Jeffersons and they folded. The most obscure of all the NFL franchises.

I have been looking for 10 years to find something related to this team. A few weeks ago I was fortunate to find a group of six Real Photo Postcards (RPPCs) from what I believe is the 1917 team based on researching rosters. I was able to determine they were “real deal” because I made a copy of the only known team photo of the Tonawanda team at the local historical society. The cabinet photo owner identified 13/25 subjects. The owner of the postcards had identified in cursive the player’s names on the reverse. I was able to match the players on the postcards to three players on the 1920 team!! Here are a couple of the postcards....

[jefferyepayne]

Those are fantastic, Carl. Show us more!

jeff

[clamendo]

Okay, Jeff....just because I like you. We are going to write an article and submit it to Gridiron Greats

Notice slighlty older versions of Frech(left), Harmon(middle), and Regnet(right) in the 1920 Team Photo. Ignore my label - I misplaced it a little to the rght.

[Jim65]

Thanks for posting these, I love to see this kind of stuff..

[Myachelydra]

Nice Carl. They are in the right collection.