Algoma & Cowboy Wheeler: "How about 'dem' Green Bay Packers?"

There are Algoma residents who almost sleep, breathe and eat Green Bay Packers. There is one who actually did.  Who knows how many Algoma residents ever attended Packer games in the early 1920s when Cowboy Wheeler was playing? It was a time long  before fans were dancing to the Packer Polka or singing “How about dem Green Bay Packers?”  For an Algoma resident wanting to stand around watching a game, the best way to get there then was via the Ahnapee & Western Railroad. The tracks were only a few blocks north of Hagermeister Park where Cowboy and the Packers were playing. Though the Packers did not command a spot in the daily lives of Northeast Wisconsin folk nearly 100 years ago when Wheeler was playing end, he lives on in the minds of the Algoma oldsters who still refer to the building at 527 4th St. as Wheelers. Though the tavern, restaurant and bowling alleys have had numerous owners since Cowboy's widow Thora sold it a year or so after his death, the place too lives on in memories.

Vincent Lyle Wheeler was born in 1898 at Stiles, near Oconto Falls, and died in Algoma of a heart attack 41 years later. Just after 1900 his family relocated to Green Bay where the boy went to St. Patrick’s Grade School. From there Wheeler went to West High School where he was an athletic standout.  After playing football at West for three years, he went on to play at Ripon College. 

Wheeler played his first game with the Packers on September 15, 1919, a day when the Packers played Menomonie North End and won big. Cowboy made himself proud that day as one of the touchdowns  in the 53-0 slaughter was his. Looking at his online stats, it seems as if Wheeler only made one touchdown in three years with the Packers, but the years reflect only those in which there was a formal organization.  Cowboy’s obituary says he played for 7 years. Today’s players at Algoma, Kewaunee or Luxemburg high schools would be most surprised to learn that Wheeler played pro ball at 5’9” and 180 pounds, a size easily matched by many on their teams.  When Cowboy played with Curly Lambeau, the man who would be coach and the man for whom Lambeau Field is named, Curly was just one of the boys.

Wheeler’s athleticism and interests in sports extended well beyond football. During the 1920s he played basketball and was on the Northern Paper Mills team, a team thought to be one of Wisconsin’s finest. He played baseball too , pitching for both Casco and Forestville during the summers before the Packers’ seasons started, and played on Algoma teams after moving to the city.

Cowboy married Thora Rasmussen before beginning his 3^rd franchised season with the Packers and came to Algoma, buying the old Stradling Pool Hall on Steele St. That space in the Busch building was best known as  Weise’s Clothiers to the next generation. The Wheelers were there for a few years and as the country was emerging from Prohibition, Cowboy and Thora began construction of the Wheeler building on 4^th. The dark, red brick structure included a restaurant, tavern  and the bowling alley that was Cowboy’s pride and joy.  It has been said that it was Cowboy Wheeler who made bowling the prominent Algoma sport that it was for so long. Drawing at least 100 teams, his annual bowling tournaments were unprecedented in places as small as Algoma. With his across-the-board interest in sports, it was inevitable that Cowboy was instrumental in the founding of Algoma Hunting and Fishing Club, an organization that remains

Wheeler’s stats with the Packers are posted for 1921, ’22 and ’23. 1921 was the year the Acme Packers of Green Bay were awarded a franchise in the year old American Professional Football Association. Acme was based in Chicago and had bought Green Bay’s Indian Packing Co. a short time before. A year later, the Association became known as the National Football League and eventually the Acme was dropped. Because their buddy was in business in Algoma, other Packers dropped by at his Wheeler's Recreational Parlors.

In pre-World War ll days, the Packers were catching on in Algoma. Maybe those who frequented Wheelers hung on to Cowboy’s stories and wanted to see the likes of Cece Isabelle, Don Hutson and Clarke Hinkle.  Before his death in 1939, the country was coming out of the Depression and gas and tires had yet to be rationed. A young man could take his best girl to the big city and rent a pop case for 5 cents. And why would one rent a pop case?  It was cheaper to stand on a pop case and look over the fence than pay admission at City Stadium, marveling “how about ‘dem’ Green Bay Packers!”

Sources: Family interviews; Wheeler's obit; Commercial Development of Algoma, Wisconsin, c. 2006; postcard in the blogger's collection.