November 25, 1920: The 1st Thanksgiving Day Parade

Judging by the cars in the background,

this is an old parade in Philadelphia, but not the first one.

November 25, 1920: The 1st Thanksgiving Day Parade in America is held. It goes down Market Street in Center City Philadelphia, sponsored by Gimbels department store.

In the modern era, Philadelphia's parade begins on John F. Kennedy Boulevard at 20th Street, goes down JFK Blvd. to Penn Square, around City Hall, then up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (You know: The Rocky Steps.) That's where the "big production numbers" are held for the TV broadcast.

Gimbels would sponsor the parade every year until 1986, going out of business the next year. WPVI-Channel 6, Philadelphia's ABC affiliate, which had broadcast the parade since 1966 (it was WFIL until 1971), took over sponsorship, partnering with another department store, Boscov's.

Boscov's is still in business, but ended their co-sponsorship after the 2007 Parade. IKEA did it the next 3 years. Since 2011, "6abc" has done it with Dunkin'. Being a restaurant chain, Dunkin' teams up with 6abc to run a holiday food drive every year.

In 2020, due to COVID, the Parade "went virtual." It was the 1st cancellation of a full parade: Even the Great Depression and World War II couldn't stop it. Fortunately, in 2019, the 100th Parade was celebrated, so the 100th Anniversary was not ruined.

New York would get into the act in 1924, with Macy's holding the Parade. It starts at 77th Street and Central Park West, across from the American Museum of Natural History, goes down Central Park West to Columbus Circle, then down Central Park South (59th Street), then down 6th Avenue to Macy's flagship store at Herald Square: 34th Street, 6th Avenue and Broadway. (It used to turn from Central Park South to 7th Avenue, then down Broadway at Times Square, to Herald Square. The route was changed in 2009, to provide more room for the floats and balloons.)

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade became a legend in 1947, with the release of the holiday film Miracle On 34th Street, which has been remade in 1973 and 1994. In the 1st 2 versions, Macy's and Gimbels permitted the use of their names, because it was good publicity. By 1994, Gimbels was gone, and Macy's did not give permission, so fictional store names were used.

NBC has broadcast the Macy's Parade nationally since 1953. CBS also does so. Like the one in Philadelphia, it features high school marching bands from around the country. Since the Parade is literally on Broadway, stars of Broadway musicals participate, doing their production numbers in front of Macy's front entrance.

Large balloons in the shape of popular children's characters are used, including, at various times, cartoon characters like Popeye and Underdog, Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Muppet characters like Kermit the Frog and Big Bird (even when characters from Sesame Street, including the Muppets used on the show, participate), and superheroes like Superman and Spider-Man.

The Macy's Parade always begins with a large animatronic turkey, flapping its wings and raising and lowering its head and eyelids; and, like the one in Philadelphia, always ends with a float containing Santa Claus' sleigh, to signal that, yes, the Christmas season -- and, more importantly from the sponsors' standpoint, the Christmas shopping season -- has begun in earnest. In New York, a small building representing Santa's Workshop is part of the float, and Mrs. Claus waves from it. In Philadelphia, Mrs. Claus rides in the sleigh with Santa.

McDonald's, headquartered in Chicago, sponsors that city's Thanksgiving parade. Other cities with them include Detroit, Houston and Seattle. Pittsburgh hosts a Celebrate the Season Parade on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

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November 25, 1920, like all Thanksgiving Days, was a Thursday. Up until 1938, it was celebrated on the last Thursday in November, which might be the 4th one in the month, or the 5th one. Since 1939, it's been officially the 4th Thursday in November, meaning it can fall on the 22nd, the 23rd, the 24th, the 25th, the 26th, the 27th or the 28th.

Two prominent actors were born on this day: Ricardo Montalbán, who starred as Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island and as the villainous Khan Noonien Singh on both an episode of Star Trek and one of the movies based on the series; and Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman.

The American Professional Football Association was founded in 1920, and became the National Football League in 1922. Games on Thanksgiving Day are almost as old as the sport of American football itself, although the tradition of doing so in high school has significantly shrunk, due to State governing bodies wanting to make more money by expanding State Playoffs.

But on that 1st Thanksgiving Day in what is now NFL history, there were 6 games involving teams in the league:

* The Decatur Staleys beat the Chicago Tigers, 6-0 at Cubs Park. The Decatur Whats? The Chicago Who? Which Park? The Tigers went out of business after that 1st season. The Staley Starch Company sponsored a football team, and got former University of Illinois end George Halas to play, coach and manage it. The following season, he moved it to Cubs Park, renamed it the Chicago Staleys, and won the NFL Championship. The season after that, he renamed them the Chicago Bears. In 1926, Cubs Park was renamed Wrigley Field.

* The Chicago Boosters beat the Hammond Pros, 27-0 at DePaul University Field in Chicago. The Pros, from the Chicago satellite city of Hammond, Indiana, went out of business after the 1925 season. The Boosters were never an APFA/NFL member, were playing their 1st season, played 1 more, and folded.

* The Dayton Triangles beat the Detroit Heralds, 28-0 at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio. Both of these teams, despite Detroit being in Michigan, were members of the Ohio League, the NFL's predecessor as the leading league in professional football. The Heralds played 1 more year and folded. In 1934, the Portsmouth Spartans of southern Ohio became the Detroit Lions, and founded the tradition of Detroit playing at home on Thanksgiving.

The Triangles were charter APFA/NFL members, and folded after the Crash of 1929. But, in a way, they still exist. Bill Dwyer, a Prohibition bootlegger who owned the NHL's New York Americans, bought the rights to the Triangles, and established a football team named the Brooklyn Dodgers.

That team lasted until 1945, merging with the team with the oddest name in NFL history: The Boston Yanks. In 1949, that team became the New York Bulldogs. In 1951, they became the New York Yanks (not "Yankees," although they did play at Yankee Stadium).

They folded, but the rights to their players were bought by a Texas group that moved them, to become the Dallas Texans. No, this is not the team that founded the AFL and became the Kansas City Chiefs. This Texans team lasted just 1 season. Their rights were sold to the men who owned the Baltimore Colts from 1947 to 1950, and they became the new Baltimore Colts. In 1984, they became the Indianapolis Colts.

So, while the NFL, and the Colts themselves, do not consider them to be a corporate continuation of the Dayton Triangles -- which would lead them back to 1913, making them the 2nd-oldest franchise in the League, behind the Arizona Cardinals, who trace themselves back to Chicago in 1898 -- they are now playing just 117 miles from their "birthplace." And they've never missed a season, which is not something that can be said by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Philadelphia Eagles (who merged for the 1943 season), the Los Angeles Rams (who suspended operations for 1943), or the Cardinals (who merged with the Steelers for 1944).

* The Akron Pros beat the Canton Bulldogs, 7-0 at League Park in Akron. Both of these teams came from the Ohio League. The Pros, led by player-coach Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard, the 1st black head coach in any sport, and the only one until 1966 and the only one in the NFL until 1989, won the league's 1st title in 1920.

The Bulldogs were led by Jim Thorpe, who soon left to start a team of all Native Americans in Marion, Ohio: The Oorang Indians. Without him, the Bulldogs won the title in 1922, 1923 and 1924. However, the Pros folded after the 1926 season, and the Bulldogs only lasted 1 more year. 

* The Columbus Panhandles and the Elyria Athletics played to a 0-0 tie, in Elyria. Both teams came from the Ohio League, which Elyria won in 1912. But the Athletics never joined the proto-NFL, and folded after this season. The Panhandles joined the NFL, but folded after 1926.

* And the All-Tonawanda Lumberjacks beat the Rochester Jeffersons, 14-3 at the Bay Street Baseball Grounds in Rochester, New York. The Jeffersons were charter APFA/NFL members, but folded after the 1925 season.

The Lumberjacks, employees of American Kardex, based on Tonawanda, outside Buffalo, joined the APFA in 1921, under the name Tonawanda Kardex, but only played 1 game before dropping out, making them the briefest-existing team in NFL history.

There were also college football games played on this Thanksgiving Day:

* Georgia beat Clemson, 55-0 at Sanford Field in Athens, Georgia. Georgia Tech beat Auburn, 34-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta. Usually, Georgia plays Georgia Tech during Thanksgiving Weekend, although the day varies from year to year.

* Virginia beat North Carolina, 14-0 at Lambeth Field in Charlottesville, Virginia. Usually, Virginia plays Virginia Tech during Thanksgiving Weekend, while North Carolina wraps up its schedule against Duke the preceding Saturday.

* Alabama beat Mississippi A&M, later known as Mississippi State, 24-7 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham. Usually, Alabama plays Auburn during Thanksgiving Weekend, although the day varies from year to year. Mississippi State plays the University of Mississippi, a.k.a. Ole Miss, usually on Thanksgiving night. Ole Miss did not play on Thanksgiving in 1920.

* Tulane beat Louisiana State, 21-0 at State Field in Baton Rouge.

* The Big Ten wrapped up its games the preceding Saturday but one of its teams was in action: Michigan Agricultural College, who became Michigan State in 1925, lost to Notre Dame, 25-0 at College Field in East Lansing.

* Washington State beat Nebraska, 21-20 at Nebraska Field in Lincoln.

* Oklahoma beat Drake University of Des Moines, Iowa, 44-7 at Boyd Field in Norman, Oklahoma.

* USC beat Oregon, 21-0 at Tournament Park in Pasadena, where the Rose Bowl was played before the stadium of the same name was built.

Back East:

* Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh played to a tie, 0-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* Maryland beat Johns Hopkins, 24-7 at College Field in College Park.

* Penn beat Cornell, 28-0 at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* And Rutgers went to the University of Detroit, and lost, 27-0 at Drinan Field in Detroit.