It's a trivia question that probably only the most diehard Minnesota Vikings fans can answer.
Where did the Vikings play their first game as a National Football League franchise 60 years ago Thursday?
The answer is....Sioux Falls.
The Vikings lost 38-13 to the Dallas Cowboys at Howard Wood Field on Aug. 5, 1961.
A grandstand ticket for the game was $5.50. Bleachers were brought in from local colleges to offer a cheaper ticket for $3.50 and increase the capacity to about 16,500.
As it turned out, they weren't needed. The announced attendance was 4,954.
The Vikings' first score came in the second quarter when George Shaw threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Hugh McElhenny.
McElhenny had played the first nine years of his career with San Francisco, but the 49ers put him on the expansion draft list and he was selected by the Vikings.
The Vikings traded McElhenny to the Giants in 1963 and he finished his career with the Lions in 1964.
He finished his career with 11,375 all-purpose yards, retiring as one of only three players to reach 11,000 yards. McElhenny was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1970.
In the fourth quarter, Vikings' coach Norm Van Brocklin sent a rookie quarterback, third-round draft pick Fran Tarkenton into the game. He threw a 36-yard TD pass to Don Ellersick to cap the scoring.
In the regular-season opener six weeks later at Metropolitan Stadium, Tarkenton replaced Shaw and threw four touchdown passes as the Vikings upset the Chicago Bears 37-13.
Tarkenton would go on to play 18 seasons in the NFL, 13 with the Vikings and five with the Giants.
He completed 3,686 of 6,467 passes for 47,003 yards and 342 touchdowns with 266 interceptions, which were all records when he retired.
Tarkenton was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987.
Sioux Falls coaching legend Bob Burns was the main organizer of the game.
"That game absolutely killed us for pro football," Burns told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Basically, we didn't know what the hell we were doing. Everything just turned into a big laugh. We were pretty proud of Howard Wood Field at the time, but the Vikings took one look at it and said, `Is this all you got?' That's when I knew we were in trouble."
After the game, Dallas sportswriter Blackie Sherrod asked Burns how much money Sioux Falls organizers had lost on the event.
"Hell, we'll lose about $5,000," said Burns, who later discovered that was a conservative estimate.
"But when I put back the $3,000 I stole, it won't be too bad. The only thing that bothers me is them damn bleachers. I got my wife out there taking them down. I gave her a head start because she's a slow worker."