1924 Milwaukee Badgers Photo, and Lecture at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear

Today, the Green Bay Packers will kick off their 2013 season in San Francisco against the 49ers. As we look forward to another year of football, it's the perfect time to reflect on Milwaukee's own NFL history.

This photo shows the 1924 Milwaukee Badgers:

Photograph courtesy of Dr. Kit Neacy, DDS

Over a decade before the Packers played their first Milwaukee game at Borchert Field (in fact, five years before Athletic Park was renamed for Otto Borchert), the Badgers were representing the Cream City in the National Football League.

Notable Badgers included former Packers star Johnny "Blood" McNally and his fellow future NFL Hall of Famers Fritz Pollard and Jimmy Conzelman, as well as a young actor, singer and law school student named Paul Robeson, who would go on to become an icon of the Civil Rights movement.

The Badgers played from 1922 through 1926. A second incarnation of the Badgers was created in 1930 with the promise of another spot in the NFL, but the team folded before finishing a single season. Three years after that, Curly Lambeau started playing home games in Milwaukee, and from that moment on Milwaukee was strictly Packer territory.

The Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear is hosting a lecture on the Badgers on September 19th, 2013 at 6pm.

Michael D. Benter, author of the new book The Badgers: Milwaukee's NFL Entry of 1922-1926, will be speaking on the history of the team. Benter is also the author of The Green and Gold Glory Years Quiz Book (on the Lombardi-Era Packers) and Roll Out The Barrels: The Brewers of Eastern Dodge County.

Tickets are $3 for the General Public, $2 with Student ID. Attendees are asked to register in advance.

The museum is located at 839 North 11th Street in Milwaukee, a little over 2 miles due south of where Borchert Field once stood.