One of the more outrageous fallacies about Green Bay Packers history is that the Acme Packing Co. played an important role in the team's survival. Notwithstanding Acme's purchase of a limited number of jerseys in 1921, the Packers exist today in spite of Acme Packing not because of it.
In fact, the Packers, at 106 years and counting, are fortunate that Acme didn't permanently poison the key to their miraculous existence – the love affair between the team and their fans. There's no way today to estimate the number of early Packers fans who were ripped off by purchasing Acme Packing stock, but no doubt there were many, including some who suffered substantial losses.
For example, one of the Packers' most loyal and financially supportive boosters might have lost more than $250,000 in today's money on his stock purchase. But more on that later.
Let's start with some basic facts.
- Acme's sponsorship of the Packers lasted no more than two months, and it might have been an even shorter period than that. In fact, Acme was the Packers' sponsor for no more than one game in what is now the National Football League.
- Acme Packing was a viable company in Green Bay for no more than 10 months.
- Acme Packing was not the original sponsor of the Packers and any such claims would be false and misleading advertising.
- The Packers' original sponsor and the company they derived their nickname from was the Indian Packing Co., not Acme.
Here's the background on Chicago-based Acme Packing's time in Green Bay and its brief tie to the Packers.
In 1915, a group of local businessmen with the hope of spurring growth and boosting the economy started mapping plans to build a packing plant in Green Bay, which resulted in the formation of the Green Bay Packing Co. and the Green Bay Stockyards and Transit Co.
When a local stock sale was launched a year later, organizers ran ads in the Green Bay Press-Gazette that read: "Do you realize what a real stock yard and packing plant means to Green Bay? It's a city and community builder. See what it has done for Chicago, St. Paul, Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis, Milwaukee and other cities. Wake up and do something for your city and surrounding county worthwhile."
By mid-November 1916, through cooperation among the various entities, the Indian Packing Company was created and its articles of incorporation were filed in Wisconsin. Three years later, articles of incorporation for the Indian Packing Corp. were filed in the state of Delaware.
During that time period, 26 acres in the town of Preble near the Hagemeister Brewing Co. were purchased as the site for a plant and construction of a four-story plus basement building was completed. During World War I, Indian Packing's business thrived thanks to government contracts and the shipping of canned meats to soldiers and sailors fighting in Europe.
Curly Lambeau's father, Marcel, was identified as the architect of Indian Packing's original warehouse on the company's blueprints dated Oct. 28, 1919. Curly himself had worked for Indian Packing before heading to Notre Dame in the fall of 1918 and then went back to work there after dropping out of school at the end of his first semester and returning to Green Bay for good in early 1919.
Thus, when Lambeau, along with local newspaperman George Calhoun, organized a sandlot football team of former Green Bay East and West high school players that fall, he asked Frank Peck, a transplant from Providence, R.I., and president of Indian Packing, to sponsor it. Peck agreed and bought uniforms for the players. In turn, the Green Bay Press-Gazette within a few days dubbed the team "Packers" and the nickname stuck.
In 1920, local typewriter salesman C.M. "Neil" Murphy took over as business manager of the Packers and was aided by Frank Jonet, office manager of Indian Packing.
While the Packers turned a nice profit of more than $6,000 that season and shared it with the players, business at Indian Packing had taken a turn for the worse. The company's efforts to sell its canned meat to the general public had not met expectations. Servicemen who had been forced to eat it overseas called it "monkey meat."
On Dec. 23, 1920, a little more than three weeks after the Packers' second season ended, the Press-Gazette revealed that the Acme Packing Co. of Chicago had reached an agreement to purchase the Indian Packing Corp.
The company planned to operate under the name Acme Packing with C.E. Martin continuing as president. Acme's slate of officers would include only one holdover from Indian Packing, John M. Clair, who had been its secretary and would now hold the title of vice president.
Here then is the timeline of Acme's existence in Green Bay and connection to the Packers.
Jan. 10, 1921 – The consolidation of the Acme and Indian companies was finalized. In the process, Acme received a loan of $1.85 million – more than $31 million in today's money based on the CPI Inflation Calculator – from the Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chicago, one of the largest banks in the country at the time. The loan was for nine years at 8%interest and was secured by the Acme properties in Chicago, Green Bay and Providence, which were valued at approximately $3.5 million. The purchase was a stock-for-stock transaction with each 100 shares of Indian Packing exchanged for 70 shares of Acme and the right to purchase 30 Acme shares at $5 each.
Jan. 11, 1921 – The ask price for Indian Packing Corp. stock closed at $4¼. Less than two years earlier, on July 30, 1919, the day Indian Packing stock was traded for the first time on the outdoor and unregulated New York Curb Market, it had opened at $37½ and closed at $44. Acme, in turn, planned to issue 425,000 shares of additional stock at $10 par value.
Feb. 1, 1921 – The Delaware secretary of state, A.R. Benson, certified that more than two-thirds of Indian Packing Corp. stockholders had voted to voluntarily dissolve the company and a certificate of dissolution was filed in his office. The plan for dissolution allowed each holder of 10 shares of Indian Packing stock to subscribe to three shares of Acme Packing stock at $5 a share.
Feb. 14, 1921 – Acme Packing stock, which was traded on the New York Curb for the first time, closed at $5 1/8.
March 1, 1921 – Initial steps were taken to move Acme Packing's offices from Chicago to Green Bay. Martin, president of Acme, had recently written to stockholders of Indian that the intention was to consolidate the entire packing business in the plant in Green Bay and that the executive offices would move there, too.
May 3, 1921 – Acme Packing stock hit a new low on the New York Curb when it closed at $2 a share.
Aug. 27, 1921 – At the then American Professional Football Association's third meeting of the year, a motion was made, seconded and carried that the Acme Packers of Green Bay, Wis., be admitted to membership. J. Emmett Clair, John Clair's younger brother, was Green Bay's sole representative at the meeting, held at the Hotel LaSalle in Chicago. Meanwhile, in Saturday trading on the New York Curb Market, Acme's stock closed at 75 cents per share.
Sept. 25, 1921 – The Packers played their first of four non-league games at Hagemeister Park in Green Bay and beat the Chicago Boosters, 13-0. The Packers would play three more non-league games against Rockford, Ill, Oct. 2; the Chicago Cornell-Hamburgs, Oct. 9; and Beloit, Wis., Oct. 16.
Oct. 23, 1921 – The Packers played their first APFA (now NFL) game and beat the Minneapolis Marines, 7-6, at Hagemeister Park.
Oct. 30, 1921 – "The Dope Sheet," the official program and publication of the Packers, announced on the day of the team's second league game that it had cut ties with Acme Packing. "The Acme Packing Company does not own nor financially back the Packer team," read the first sentence of what was titled an "Editorial Note." What's more, "The Dope Sheet" suggested the team's split with Acme might have taken place even earlier, explaining, "To make this (breakup) possible the Clair brothers at the offset of the season agreed to be financially responsible and the younger Mr. Clair assumed the active management of the club…".
At roughly the same time, Thomas O. Gibbs, arrived in Green Bay as a representative of the banks in Chicago and New York that had a stake in the loan issued to Acme in January and took charge of Acme's financial affairs.
Nov. 6, 1921 – During a season in which the roster was a revolving door, the Packers beat Evansville at Hagemeister Park and presumably posed – based on who was pictured and played that day – for the only known photo of the 1921 team. Of the 21 players pictured in what has been one of the most widely circulated photos in Packers history, only five were clearly wearing a jersey with the words "ACME PACKERS" across the front. That said, the fronts of the jerseys of only 13 players were visible with a 14th being debatable. In all, the Packers played 11 games that season, six of which counted in the APFA standings, and used at least 37 players. Considering only three players played in both the first game and last game, the number of them wearing Acme jerseys likely diminished throughout the season.
Dec. 4, 1921 – The Packers ended their season in Milwaukee with a 3-3 tie against Racine in a non-league game. The Clair brothers, John M. and J. Emmett, who had financed the team after ties were cut with Acme Packing wound up losing a total of $3,800 – or $71,000 in today's money.
Dec. 5, 1921 – With outstanding first mortgage bonds of $1.85 million and unsecured indebtedness of $1.83 million, Acme Packing entered into an agreement with its creditors and bondholders, who extended the time of payments. The company's total debt was $3.68 million – or $69 million in today's money – and the liquidation or reorganization efforts of Acme, however one viewed it at the time, continued.
Aug. 15, 1922 – The Acme Packing Co. was in the process of moving its offices back to Chicago, the Press-Gazette reported. Gibbs, head of the office in Green Bay, moved back to Chicago the first week of September.
Feb. 8, 1923 – John Clair, the lone officer of both Indian and Acme Packing, returned to Green Bay and informed members of the Association of Commerce that he hoped to take over the packing plant with a locally organized firm. "The old Indian plant never was a failure, but the chief reason why it was not a lasting and genuine success, also the Acme, was because the plant was never used for the purpose of which it was built, the slaughtering of cattle and packing of fresh meats," Clair told the gathering. In truth, not a single cow had been slaughtered at the plant over the five years it was in operation from 1917 to 1922. Clair's effort to form a new company failed.
Aug. 8, 1923 – Alfred Tolde, secretary and treasurer of Acme Packing when it purchased Indian Packing, filed for bankruptcy in federal court in Chicago, claiming virtually no assets and owing $4 million.
March 26, 1926 – With Emil Fischer as president, the recently organized Atlas Warehouse and Cold Storage Co. purchased the Acme Packing plant, which had sat mostly idle for the past several years. Fischer would later serve as president of the Packers from 1947-53.
June 29, 1927 – Two days before the expiration of the extension agreement between the company and its creditors ended, all assets of the Acme Packing Co. were sold for $65,000 to Chicago meatpacker Harry Manaster. The public sale was held at the site of the former Green Bay plant. The bid was for the good will of the company, including brand names, labels, lists of customers, the remaining stock of canned goods, and machinery and office furniture. At the time of the sale, Acme had assets of roughly $188,000 against liabilities of $11.4 million.
July 14, 1927 – The Acme Packing plant was taken over by United Packers, Inc. Operations at the old Acme plant in Green Bay resumed under the ownership of Manaster and through a lease agreement with Atlas Warehouse and Cold Storage.
Oct. 3, 1927 – An affidavit of withdrawal from Wisconsin was filed with the secretary of state, declaring that the Acme Packing Co. had ceased operations.
Dec. 11, 1931 – The United Packers, Inc., announced it would shut its plant in Green Bay and move all operations to Chicago.
While the Packers barely survived their first season in what is now the NFL partly because of Acme's financial collapse, what actually could have doomed them was if some of their biggest backers had withdrawn their support because of their personal financial losses.
Take the case of Alfred C. Witteborg, one of the owners of the Beaumont Hotel and one of the original board members of the Green Bay Football Corporation. He also was one of just 19 people or companies who purchased the maximum 20 shares of stock when the public corporation was formed in 1923 to keep the Packers alive.
In Witteborg's personal papers left following his death in 1965, there was a note signed by J.M. Clair confirming that he had received from Witteborg $15,500 on July 17, 1919, to purchase Indian Packing stock. Thirteen days later, Indian Packing's stock opened on the New York Curb for the first time at $37½ and closed at $44.
At the opening price, Witteborg would have received roughly 413 shares of Indian Packing stock for his $15,500, and those shares would have been worth no more than about $1,300 when it was announced that Indian had been purchased by Acme roughly 18 months later.
In today's money, if Witteborg would have kept his original investment until the Acme-Indian consolidation was agreed upon, he would have lost approximately $265,000.
Witteborg's actual loss is unknown.
He also left in his personal papers an Acme Packing stock certificate signed on April 25, 1921, for 100 shares with a par value of $10. Thus, if Witteborg had fully accepted Acme's stock-for-stock offer, his loss would have been even greater. On Oct. 30, 1921, the day before the Packers announced they were cutting ties with Acme, the company's stock closed at 95 cents per share.
There were references in the Press-Gazette at the time that others in Green Bay also had lost money by investing in the packing companies, but how many and how much was lost we'll never know.
The fleecing didn't end there, either, at least on a national scope.
Although Acme never rallied and despite warnings from investment advisors that its stock was worthless, the company continued to sell shares on the curb market for pennies almost up until the date of its 1927 public sale.
For example, on March 20, 1924, Acme sold 7,000 shares of its stock priced at 4 cents. On Sept. 8, 1925, it sold 10,000 shares priced at 2 cents. On Dec. 27, 1926, it sold 3,000 shares at 3 cents.
A reader and Packers fan recently informed me that an Acme stock certificate from 1925 was sold online for more than $1,000. One hundred years earlier, that certificate along with the 100 shares could have been purchased for the grand total of $2.
By Jan. 1, 1925, the 100,000-square foot Acme plant in Green Bay, which once employed roughly 300 people, had a work force of about a handful of employees. What's more, since 1922, newspapers offering investment advice had been issuing notices such as this: "Acme Packing Co. stock is a highly speculative issue that cannot be classed as an investment."
Beyond that, Acme Packing stock dated after Oct. 30, 1921, would not qualify as Packers memorabilia and was basically sold back then to swindle more money from gullible buyers.
