Today's Tidbit... Factoid Feast VII

As discussed in Factoid Feast I, II, III, IV, V, and VI, my searches through football history sometimes lead to topics too important to ignore but too minor to Tidbit. Such nuggets are factoids, three of which are shared today.

---

When Football Went Online

Newspaper reports tell us that white lines marked the field borders for the 1880 Harvard-Princeton game, unlike other early football games that sometimes used flags in the four corners and at midfield rather than chalk. Chalked lines became more important with the arrival of downs in 1882 when the rules called for lines every five yards.

So, how did the old boys mark the lines? In all likelihood, they borrowed a wooden-barrelled line marker like those used for baseball, polo, or tennis, which also required white lines delineating one part of a grass field from another. An example tool of the trade can be seen below.

(1883 Wright & Ditson catalog)