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#TBT This Uptown Hotel Was Once Home to the Chicago Bears (or Staleys)

By Josh McGhee | August 27, 2015 7:44am
 In 1921, the Blackwood Apartments on Clarendon Beach were home to the Chicago Bears.
In 1921, the Blackwood Apartments on Clarendon Beach were home to the Chicago Bears.
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Clarendon Park Advisory Council/Melanie Eckner

UPTOWN — For #ThrowbackThursday, let's travel back to an Uptown hotel on the beach that was once home to the Chicago Staleys — or as we know them now, the Chicago Bears.

In 1921, the Blackwood Apartment Hotel on Uptown’s famous Clarendon Beach became the first home and headquarters of the Chicago Staleys, a football club that had its roots in Decatur, according to the Bears website.

Playing in Cubs Park as their home field, they captured the NFL championship that year, according to Melanie Eckner, who serves on the Clarendon Park Advisory Council. "The photo shows Clarendon Beach had not yet become the neighborhood park, created by the 1930s lakefill."

According to Mark Sorenson in Corn Hustlers: How Decatur Starchworkers Became Chicago Bears: "[George] Halas moved his players into the Blackwood Apartment Hotel at 4414 Clarendon Avenue and then quickly made a deal with William Veeck Sr., president of the P.K. Wrigley-owned Chicago Cubs baseball team for use of Cubs Park as the Staleys' home field."

That year, the Chicago Staleys won the APFA Championship with a 9-1-1 record, the Bears website says.

The franchise was renamed the Chicago Bears in 1922.

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