Kanaweola Athletic Club
The Kanaweola Athletic Club, based in Elmira, New York, began as a bicycling club and later fielded a professional football team. They even operated an indoor cycling track inside the Steele Memorial Library. The club is best known for a historic moment: on Friday, November 21, 1902, at 8:00 pm, Kanaweola played in the first ever professional football night game. The game was at the Maple Avenue Driving Park (now Dunn Field) in Elmira, where Kanaweola lost 39–0 to the Philadelphia Athletics of the first National Football League. At first, the significance of the game was overlooked; the Elmira Daily Advertiser and Free Gazette printed only the score with the headline “Kanaweola Eleven was Brushed Aside, Great Game Just the Same.” It wasn’t until decades later that people recognized it as the first pro football game played at night.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:20 (CET).