The little town that could

Just in time for the NFL Draft, the Brown County Library is set to unveil a series of large-scale banners that pay tribute to the rich history of the Green Bay Packers and the organization’s early days.

The project has been titled Miracle of Green Bay, a nod to the Packers’ uncertain financial beginning.

“The term ‘Miracle of Green Bay’ really comes from Cliff Christl,” said Jeff Gilderson-Duwe, local history specialist at the Brown County Library. “Basically what he said is that the Packers, financially, were kind of on life support off and on before the 1960s. So the first 40 years of the team, they had at least three points where they were in financial crisis and members of the community stepped in. [Christl] basically said, ‘It’s a miracle that they’re still here.’”

A visual celebration of the Packers local legacy and its deep ties to the downtown area, each of the six banners in the series has been designed to capture the passion, triumph and spirit that have defined the team and its loyal fans for generations.

“The media and some of the people in the league over its history have kind of dismissed Green Bay because it’s the smallest media market and because it’s a smaller town than places like Dallas or New York City,” Gilderson-Duwe said.

“The thing that I hope folks will take away is this story of the community supporting the team and the team supporting the community — that they’ve persisted and they’ve succeeded… We’re the little town that could. We’re not a little town, but compared to San Francisco or Miami, we’re relatively small.

That’s what the message is really about — small town values, hospitality and being supportive… The people who lead the team as well as the players… They’re members of this community in ways they wouldn’t be in those much larger metropolitan areas.”

Work has already begun on the installation of the banners with display sites including the Central Library, Northern Building, and Brown County Courthouse lawn.

In conjunction with the Miracle of Green Bay banners, the Brown County Library Local History Department has created miracleofgreenbay.org, a web-based collection of images and text to complement each banner, offering more information about the team’s history and its ties to downtown Green Bay.
Photos and other materials for the Miracle of Green Bay project have been made available thanks to a collaborative effort between the Brown County Library, Cliff Christl, the Green Bay Press Gazette, the Green Bay Packers and the Neville Public Museum.

“The story we’re trying to tell is of this kind of tight partnership and support for the success of the team and the community,” Gilderson-Duwe said. “And this project exemplifies that — we’re a government institution and part of the community here at the Brown County Library itself and the Green Bay Packers organization and the Green Bay Press Gazette… Those folks really, really came through.”