Chicago’s football team began its existence in 1919 as the Decatur Staleys, a semipro club sponsored by the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company, a producer of cornstarch in the central Illinois town. Augustus Eugene Staley, the company’s founder, hired former University of Illinois star George Halas as coach and put the players on the business’s payroll, using them in his plant when they weren’t playing football.

For Staley, the endeavor ended up to be a financial bust. Due to an economic downturn in 1921, he had to get the 25-man team off his books. So he gave Halas $5,000 to move it to Chicago. “All I ask is you continue to call the team the Staleys for one season,” he told Halas.

So in 1921, the team played as the Chicago Staleys. But the next season, freed from his promise, Halas renamed the squad. The team was playing home games at Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field), which gave him his inspiration: Football players were bigger and meaner than baseball players, so “Bears” seemed like an appropriate name. “It couldn’t hurt if anyone thought his football team was connected to the popular baseball club,” Lew Freedman observed in his 2008 book Chicago Bears: The Complete Illustrated History.

It also couldn’t hurt if fans thought his team was larger and fiercer, too.

Send your questions about the Chicago area to emcclelland@chicagomag.com.