Douglas Park (Rock Island)

• 1. Introduction

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  Douglas Park sits at the corner of 18th Avenue and 10th Street in Rock Island, Illinois, and on the 26th of September 1920, it became the birthplace of professional football as Americans now know it. Nine days after the National Football League had formally organized at a meeting in Canton, Ohio, the Rock Island Independents took the field against the St. Paul Ideals. The Independents won 48-0. Nobody in the stands could have known they were watching history. What kind of team was playing in this small Illinois city? How did a neighborhood park on the banks of the Mississippi become the stage for some of the most famous names in football? And what happened to the Independents, to the park, and to the peculiar double life Douglas Park led as both a gridiron and a baseball diamond?

• 2. First Game in NFL History

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  The league that would become the NFL was formally organized on the 17th of September 1920, at a meeting in Canton, Ohio. Rock Island Independents owner Walter Flanigan was present that day. After the formation was complete, Flanigan was named to the committee that drafted the league's constitution. Nine days later, Douglas Park hosted the first competitive game in the new league's existence.

  The Rock Island Independents defeated the non-member St. Paul Ideals 48-0 in that maiden contest. The score was emphatic. A week after that, on the 3rd of October 1920, the Independents returned to Douglas Park and defeated the Muncie Flyers 45-0 in what the source describes as the first full week of league play.

  The league called itself the American Professional Football Association that first year. It would not adopt the name National Football League until 1922. Among the 14 original franchises alongside Rock Island were the Akron Pros, the Canton Bulldogs, the Decatur Staleys, the Chicago Cardinals, and the Columbus Panhandles. The Green Bay Packers joined a year later. Jim Thorpe, who would later play at Douglas Park himself, served as the league's first president.

• 3. The Rock Island Independents

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  Walter Flanigan was not just the Independents' owner at the moment of the NFL's founding. He had also played for the team, and the source credits him as the driving force behind building the franchise into one of early professional football's durable institutions. Flanigan coached the team in 1915, 1916, and 1918, and the 1918 squad finished with a perfect 5-0 record.

  The Independents had been playing at Douglas Park since 1907, and the pre-NFL years produced several undefeated seasons: 1908 (4-0), 1910 (5-0), 1912 (8-0), and 1913 (6-0-1). When the NFL years began, the team posted a 6-2-2 record in 1920, then went 4-2-1 in both 1921 and 1922. Five of those six losses in the NFL's first three seasons came against the Decatur Staleys, the Chicago Staleys, and the Chicago Bears, all coached by George Halas.

  The Independents' overall NFL record across six seasons was 26-14-9. Ownership passed from Flanigan to Dale Johnson, and after a 5-3-3 finish in 1925, Johnson made a fateful choice: he moved the team out of the NFL to become a charter member of a new American Football League, and simultaneously relocated the home stadium from Douglas Park to Browning Field in neighboring Moline. The American Football League folded after just one season, taking the Rock Island Independents down with it.

• 4. Hall of Fame Names on the Field

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  Jim Thorpe played for the Independents in 1924, and after that season he organized a touring team he called the Thorpe Independents. His induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame came in 1963. Thorpe had also served as the first president of the league that would become the NFL, making his appearances at Douglas Park all the more layered in significance.

  Three other players who suited up for the Independents also earned Hall of Fame recognition. Tackle Ed Healey was inducted in 1964, as was back Jimmy Conzelman. Joe Guyon followed in 1966. Beyond the Independents' own roster, Douglas Park drew visiting Hall of Famers as well. Curly Lambeau brought his Green Bay Packers to Rock Island, and George Halas arrived with his Chicago Bears. Paddy Driscoll and George Trafton also performed at the park.

  On the 30th of September 1923, the Independents defeated George Halas's Chicago Bears 3-0 at Douglas Park. The Independents and Bears tied scoreless on both the 28th of September 1924 and the 20th of September 1925. On the 4th of October 1925, the Independents beat Curly Lambeau's Green Bay Packers 3-0. The final NFL game at Douglas Park came on the 22nd of November 1925, a 40-7 win over the Milwaukee Badgers.

• 5. Baseball at Douglas Park

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  The ballfield and grandstands were built in 1904-1905, the same construction phase that prepared Douglas Park for athletics of all kinds. The Rock Island Islanders moved in for the 1905 season, replacing Twelfth Street Park, which had been the Islanders' home since 1898.

  The Islanders played at Douglas Park through 1937 and cycled through multiple league affiliations over those decades. They competed in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League (the Three-I League), the Mississippi Valley League, the Central Association, the Western Association, the Eastern Iowa League, the Illinois-Iowa League, and finally the Class D level Western League. The Islanders were a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Browns in 1932 and the Cincinnati Reds in 1933. League championships came in 1907, 1909, and 1932.

  Jimmy Conzelman, the same man who had played and coached for the Independents football team, managed the Islanders in 1922 and also played for the baseball squad that year. The Moline Plowboys and the Davenport Blue Sox were rival Quad City teams in the same era. Douglas Park also hosted the ISC World Fastpitch Softball Tournament from 1961 through 1969, and again in 1973.

• 6. Douglas Park Today

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  A group called Friends of Douglas Park formed in 2007 and raised money through donations to remodel the large baseball field, designating the project Phase 1 of a total park renovation. On the 9th of May 2017, the renovated diamond reopened with a high school baseball game between Rock Island Alleman High School and Rock Island High School. A crowd of 450 watched the Rocks defeat the Pioneers 2-0.

  The park continues to host youth baseball and Rock Island Legion Post 200. The Quad City 76ers Semi-Pro Baseball Club has played home games at Douglas Park since 1986.

  In August 2015, a throwback football game was staged at Douglas Park to mark the site's football legacy. Early football rules governed the contest, and the Rock Island Independents team defeated the Moline Universal Tractors 24-0, a small echo of the blowout victories the original Independents posted at the same address nearly a century before.