Camp Funston had a capacity crowd sitting on their hill for their Thanksgiving game with the Fighting Illini. Among the Illinois players was George Halas, who joined the Navy the following spring, playing baseball and football for the Bluejackets, including a starring role in their 1919 Rose Bowl victory.
Camp Funston’s primary claim to fame comes from it being the location of the world’s first diagnosed case of the Spanish Flu in March 1918.
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