The Green Bay Packers played at the bare-bones City Stadium for 32 years from 1925 to 1956. The list of attending legends was long but the list of amenities was short. The one thing it did have was great grass. Packers Team Historian Cliff Christl says, “I think it’s 87 players at Canton (that) either played a preseason (game), most of them played regular-season games there. Very few of the legends of the game didn’t. The only two I can think of were Jim Thorpe and Sammy Baugh, all the other great names did.”
The stadium, tightly packed between Green Bay East High School and the East River was completely bare bones. It was mostly made of wood and only eventually sat 25,000 at the end. Seats and a little trailer brought in for concessions was about all it had for the fans. “There weren’t even restrooms there until I think it was the late 1930’s,” said Christl. ” Basically, in truth, the men would go out along the wooden fence in the back of the stands, and the women would have to hold it.”
The one thing it did have was great grass according to the Mark Daniels, “Lush grass, soft grass, that’s all I heard about from a lot of those guys who played there.” Christl added, “All the old players loved the surface and I think probably because it was located along the East River.”
The playing surface might have been great for the players, but still, there were no locker rooms until the mid-1930’s. The Packers dressed at the Columbus Club which is now the WBAY-TV Building in downtown Green Bay. When they eventually built a shed for a locker room, it was no more than hooks on a wall. “I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been bigger than somebody’s nice sized living room today,” said Christl.
