Photo by Jim Bowling, Herald & Review
A team photo of the original Decatur Staleys.

•September 19, 2018•

By Justin Conn
Of the Decatur Herald & Review

A.E. “Gene” Staley’s successful corn manufacturing company in Decatur was already producing starch, glucose, sugar and syrup in 1919 when it added professional football to the assembly line.
Staley, owner of the Staley Manufacturing Co., would eventually make Decatur the “Soybean Capital of the World.” He was behind the creation of Lake Decatur, the Staley viaduct and the Staley Building (now the Tate and Lyle Building).
But Staley’s legacy will forever be linked with the NFL’s Chicago Bears, originally the Decatur Staleys — a football team that grew from Staley’s desire to dominate an industrial football league and expand his brand.
With no professional football league at that time and many former college football players working factory jobs, industrial leagues rose in popularity in the early 1900s — particularly in the college-football-crazy Midwest.
Staley, wanting to offer athletics as an outlet for his employees, decided in 1919 to form a team of his own. The first team was made up of the existing pool of Staley employees, though about half the squad had played in college. The team practiced and played at Staley Field — built and also used as a baseball facility.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.