We recount the remarkable 1893 contest between the United States Military Academy and the Chicago Athletic Club, an early and consequential night and indoor football game staged amid the illuminations of the Columbian Exposition. I explain that West Point cadets encamped on the fairgrounds for weeks and that the match was played in the stock pavilion beneath electric lights, rendering it one of the earliest documented contests conducted under artificial illumination. We describe how the Chicago Athletic Club, composed largely of accomplished former college players, prevailed, and how Coach Bliss—recently engaged by West Point—astonishingly entered the second half for Chicago and scored against the cadets. I situate the game within the broader milieu of the World's Fair, noting that the exposition’s technological innovations and transient architectural fabric provided an extraordinary backdrop for experiments in evening play. We underscore that the affair exemplifies the idiosyncratic practices of late-nineteenth-century sport—temporary venues, tan-bark surfaces, and ad hoc rosters—and that its preservation enriches our understanding of the early evolution of American football.

The conversation is based on Tim's recent article titled: The 1893 West Point-Chicago AC Night Game - https://www.footballarchaeology.com/p/todays-tidbit-the-1893-west-point

⏰ Timecodes ⏰

00:07 Football at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair

04:11 Scheduling the 1893 West Point–Chicago AC Night Game

05:23 The Chicago AC Game — Coach Bliss Plays Against West Point

09:40 Chicago World's Fair: Innovations That Shaped Today

11:59 How to Read More: Subscribe to FootballArchaeology.com

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The talk of the country.

There was electrical marvels, the Ferris wheel.

And new foods were introduced.

But there was also football.

Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us all about this famous football game.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your.

Portal to positive football history.

And welcome to Tuesday.

It is the day that we get to talk to our friend Timothy Brown of Football Archaeology.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey there.

Look forward to chatting and talking a little bit about making a West Point.

Or two.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Or two.

Yeah.

You have an article that you wrote that was going to be the topic of our conversation.

What can you tell us about this game, Tim?

Yeah, a lot of stuff packed in that title.

Yeah, for some reason this is one of those games that I, you know, I mean, I've written a bunch of stuff about like, the early night games and early, you know, games under the lights, all that kind of stuff, indoor games and.

But for some reason I never really paid much attention to this one, but it caught my eye because, you know, I recently wrote an article about a, a guy who had played at.

So.

Well, he for sure was one of the early guys wearing headgear.

Right.

And so and the, the coach for, for West Point that year was a guy named Lori who had played at Yale.

And so I kind of, you know, in doing some of this other, the research on this, this guy who wore the early headgear, I ended up coming across this, you know, an article about the Chicago AC or West Point Chicago AC game.

And that is when they, you know, having a world's fair was a big deal back then and they'd build these massive complexes and a lot of it was made out, it's like temporary structures, you know, many of them.

So Chicago built theirs on the south side and the, the north side of where they, well, they, they built this long canal coming off of Lake Michigan and that was in a big, like, park along the way.

And that is, that's called the Midway.

And so, you know, you hear about the monsters of Midway.

That was where that comes from.

Even like Midway Airport, which is, you know, Further west is based on the same thing, but.

And then the north side of the midway is where the University of Chicago campus is.

So, so they had, they built this massive place.

You know, again, all these, they were temporary stretches but you know, they lasted for whatever six months.

And this was also one of the first places that used a tremendous amount of electrical lighting.

So they, the whole place was lit up and there were all kinds of fights early on between like Edison and Westinghouse about who was going to light this place.

And you know, and I don't even remember which one, you know, got the contract but you know it had the first Ferris wheel was during this, this thing there's just a lot of, a lot of innovations that came up.

But so they, they ended up scheduling a game.

Well, so during the pro or during the whole process, West Point decided like one of their summer exercises was going to be to have all of the, all the cadets, you know, jump on train, head out to Chicago.

And then they basically encamped on the world's Fairgrounds.

And so they hung around there for like three weeks.

And you know, I, I assume they had this all planned out ahead of time because they wore, they had their football gear with them, but they arranged to play a game against the Chicago Athletic Club.

And the Chicago Athletic Club was like really a really solid team.

They had guys like Tuffle Finger from Yale, Ames and Donnelly from Princeton.

They had some Harvard guys, camp of Penn, Malley of Michigan and Sanger from Wisconsin.

So you know, talented guys who were, you know, mostly guys just working in the city of Chicago, but had been know college football players.

So they played a game with two 20 minute halves and one of the other interesting things about it, you know, I mentioned this, you know, like Lori, he had been out coaching.

Well, he's out in San Francisco and I believe.

So I say Lori, his name is Lori Bliss.

But he had, I think he was coaching like helping coach Stanford, you know, kind of in the off season and, but he was out there and then, you know, he was hired to coach West Point.

So he goes, he jumps on a train from San Francisco, heads up, you know, gets to Chicago.

But instead of working with the West Point team, he actually played in the second half for the Chicago AC team.

The guy who was going to coach them in the, you know, during the year and who did end up doing it played against them in the first game of the season, you know, which is just, you know, kind of unthinkable.

You know.

That's the time.

1893.

1893.

Okay, so if he was assisting at Stanford, then wouldn't Walter Camp have been coaching at Stanford right around that time?

So I think Stanford or I think Camp was there in 92 and, and he may have stayed for like 93 and even 94.

He was out there I think two or three seasons.

Yeah.

Or at least, you know, during football season.

But Bliss would have been out there during the summer, the summer of 19.

Gotcha.

Okay, I, I forget exactly.

I should have looked, looked back.

So they weren't.

He wasn't assisting camp.

He was doing a different time of the year.

Yeah.

Okay.

I believe that's the case.

Yeah.

Okay, so anyways, you know, so, you know, this turned out to be, you know, I mean they, the game was a big deal.

They had all these military balls, you know, beforehand and you know, these guys would be like, is a big deal for the players.

Whatever state you were from.

A lot of the states had exhibits so you'd go in your dress uniform to the ball for your state, meet the governor, all that kind of stuff and you know, just a totally bizarre kind of circumstance compared to what college, you know, athletics like today.

And so anyways, they end up playing this very talented, you know, team and the, you know, Chicago AC wins and Bliss scored in the second half against his West Point team.

So that's kind of funny.

But yeah, you know, just one of those, just unbelievable, you know, playing against your coach, you know, playing in like a summer, summer game after camping at the site, you know, for three weeks, you know, just kind of crazy stuff, you know, that you just can't even picture now.

But the, the other thing about it though was that it was played in indoors.

So it was, it was a night game and it was played in like the stock pavilion, so the, you know, a place where you paraded cattle, you know, for judging and everything and probably.

Smelled really lovely in there too.

Oh, I'm bet, Yeah.

I mean, just like for a long time those things that they, they toss, like, they always called it tan bark, which is like ground up bark from, you know, from lumber yards and stuff.

They throw that on the ground and that was the padding that they, you know, you know, that was, I guess, you know, didn't hurt as much when you fell on tan bark compared to the, probably the compressed clay in a place like that.

But sure.

Anyways, just bizarre, bizarre circumstances.

But.

So I think it, I think it was like the third indoor and or night game that was played so.

Interesting, interesting I.

You know, it was right about the time that you had wrote this and I read, you know, and you had some of the facts that you just mentioned about the Chicago World's Fair.

I was watching a TV program and I forget what it was.

Modern Marvels or something.

They were talking whatever facet came out of the same World's Fair and they were rattling things off, you know, like Heinz ketchup and things that we still use today.

I think Hershey's syrup or something.

A bunch of different items.

But it's amazing how that one event spawn so many different things that still are used, you know, over 125 years later.

Yeah, I mean it's.

Well, this is kind of like just like when did this first.

When did this first happen in football?

You know, some of those stories get hard to disentangle.

But I think supposedly the first ice cream cone.

Yeah, those were used there.

I already mentioned the Ferris wheel.

Anyway, so it's just a bunch of stuff like that.

And then like there's an author, Lars or other.

But you know, he.

He wrote a story about a mass murderer who was in Chicago in the time.

And it was like the.

Something of the.

The Light City or something.

I can't.

I mean, I read it maybe 20 years ago, but you know, anyways, just a fascinating.

That's the one that they connect, say maybe Jack the Ripper.

Is that the.

The same one I'm thinking of?

Yeah, I mean it could be.

I think.

I don't know that part of the story.

But yeah, I think of.

There's some.

Some connection or they think Jack the Ripper came over or left here and went over and became Jack the Rippers.

Some conspiracy theory like that.

But the interesting stuff for sure.

And there.

There was also a football game at the Chicago World's Fair, so.

That's right.

That's.

That's the important part of talking about in our.

Our world.

Had a World's Fair, they.

They also had.

They had a football game I think nearly every weekend in the fall.

And you know, combination.

I think it was mostly St. Louis U playing teams, but Washu played teams too, and, and Carlisle, you know, Carlisle played one of those games for sure.

You know, so I mean, it was like good competitive football being played.

Very cool.

Well, you always have these neat little stories that, you know, been forgotten by our modern ears and eyes and we're glad that you remind us and help preserve the history and maybe you could tell people how they could take in some of these stories?

Sure.

Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so subscribe and if you do so, every time that I publish a story, you'll get an email containing the story itself.

But otherwise, you know, bookmark the site and come and check it out whenever you feel like it.

Tim, we really appreciate you sharing this with us tonight and sharing your articles that you write, you know, a lot of most of the year and appreciate you and hope you come on next week and talk some more great football history.

Look forward to it.

Thanks Darren.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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