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Selling Snake Oil Football in Green Bay in 1919

For 96 years, it has been recorded that the Packers played the Menominee North End Athletic Club in their first game as a semipro football team, and it will forever be that way.

But if you were living in the twin cities of Marinette, Wis., or Menominee, Mich., at the time, you’d have sworn it was an undermanned neighborhood team from Marinette with a different name that traveled to Green Bay to play the Packers.

That’s because the Green Bay Press-Gazette went to much further extremes than most anyone realizes in an effort to get local fans to back the team.