It's a trivia question that probably only the most diehard Minnesota Vikings fans can answer. That is, unless they read the caption on the photo above this.
Where did the Vikings play their first game as a National Football League franchise 63 years ago today (Monday)?
The answer is....Sioux Falls. The Vikings lost 38-13 to the Dallas Cowboys at Howard Wood Field.
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.
In the fourth quarter, Vikings' coach Norm Van Brocklin sent a rookie quarterback, third-round draft pick Fran Tarkenton into the game. Tarkenton 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.
The Cowboys actually had the shorter trip to the game of the two teams.
In their second year in the NFL, they were holding training camp at St. Olaf College in Northfield after spending 1960 between St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wis. and Pacific University in Oregon.
"In my 12 years in the league I'd have to say that St. Olaf gave us the best camp I've ever been to in terms of food, practice fields, and housing," said Dallas coach Tom Landry.
Landry spent most of his playing career with the New York Giants, who also trained in Minnesota for a short time as they held their 1952 and 1953 training camps at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.
The Vikings trained in Bemidji from 1961-1965 and were in Mankato from 1966-2017. They moved into Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center in Eagan in 2018.
Back to the 1961 game, Sioux Falls coaching legend Bob Burns was the main organizer.
"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."