Fritsch: The Packers’ expensive experiment

In 1946, the Packers purchased a picturesque 53-acre compound built in 1937 for the Green Bay-area Norbertine order.

The $32,000 purchase was approved by the board of directors in May as a “permanent home” for the team.
The Press-Gazette’s Art Daley said that the reasons for the acquisition were two-fold: “To solve the critical housing situation which the directors fear will last three or four years” and to “give future Packer teams a new and better environment.”

“Since the late 1920s, most of the Packers players, especially the single ones, had lived at the Astor Hotel on North Adams Street in downtown Green Bay,” explained Packers Historian Cliff Christl.

“With its comfortable lobby and connecting bar and barbershop, the Astor served as a welcome center when players arrived in town and a gathering place as long as they stayed.

“With the war coming to an end, more players were starting families and needed more living space.”
With short-term rentals hard to find in Green Bay, the team searched for a new home with accommodations to fit the entire team.

With 3,000 feet of shoreline, a stone gateway, a main hall with dormitory-style bedrooms, boat launch, tennis courts and an outdoor theater, along with a hired chef and caretaker, it would be a comfortable home at that.

A regulation-sized football field was laid out on the grounds and a dressing room, equipment room and showers were added.

And in July, five cottages were purchased by the Packers Corporation for use by married men and their families.

“(Curly) Lambeau believes he will get the ‘absolute maximum’ from his players as the result of their new environment since the Packers coach will be able to regulate their diet and better control the after-training activities of the athletes,” Daley wrote.

But there was one problem: the grounds were not ideal for a football field.

With little topsoil covering the limestone below, the surface wasn’t conducive for use as a practice field.

“They held their first practice at Rockwood on Aug. 12, 1946. The next morning, Lambeau was forced to move the workout to City Stadium to save the wear and tear on his players’ legs. And it was an ongoing problem,” Christl added.

But, by essentially paying their players’ room and board, Rockwood served as a money pit to some degree.

After showing a net profit of more than $23,000 in 1944 and 1945 — two of the most lucrative years in their history — it plummeted to less than $4,000 in 1946.

Player salaries had increased by more than $100,000 from 1944 to 1946, but Rockwood was an additional $15,700 expense in its first year.

The Packers finished the 1946 season at 6-5-0 in the NFL’s Western Division, with Fritsch leading in scoring and second in rushing and punting.

But the year 1946 was far more important to Fritsch for an entirely different reason.

To be continued