MIDWEST--A 100-year-old football was pulled out of Midwest’s museum Friday night and brought to the town’s high school football field not to be hiked, passed or booted but to commemorate the tiny town’s century-old link to gridiron history.
That tie to the nation’s first full high school football game under lights was appreciated by a hometown crowd that included some members of the high school’s past football teams.
On Nov. 19, 1925, a Thursday, the Midwest Oil and Refining company set up lights that redefined when and how the nation’s high school athletes could compete.
Though some college night games had already occurred, the Midwest Yellow Dogs and Casper Mustangs paved the way for generations of “Friday Night Lights” across the country.
Midwest Schools Principal Mike Brainard characterized the 100th-year anniversary as “super exciting for Midwest.” He is confident that the community alone has the right to say it first brought light into the darkness on a high school football field.
“There’s another little school in Pennsylvania that wants to claim it, but they didn’t finish their football game, so we are claiming it because it was the first full football game completed in America,” he said.
Halftime events for Friday’s contest between the six-man Midwest Oilers squad and the Riverside Rebels included a special video to honor the century old lights-on event.
Midwest Coach Joe Campbell holds the century-old football at a halftime ceremony celebrating 100 years of Friday Night Lights. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
When the six-man Midwest Oilers football squad took to the field Friday night, it was the 100th anniversary of the nation's first high school football game played at night under electric lights. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Will and Guy Chapman, both wore the same number when they played football at Midwest. The son and father were on hand to cheer on the current squad. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Midwest Oilers line up to try and extra point after scoring a touchdown. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Oilers go on the offensive against Riverside. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
White Football
The local Salt Creek Museum also brought out the white football used in the 1925 Yellow Dogs game to allow a re-enactment of the football team photo from 100 years ago.
“It was painted white, but over the years it has faded. But it’s pretty cool to touch something that is over 100 years old,” Brainard said.
As this century’s Oilers took the field, senior running back and tight end Timothy Howe said to represent his school 100 years after it started playing night football “is kind of crazy.”
“It’s kind like unreal to think about,” he said.
Teammate Noah Dickerson, a junior, agreed.
“It’s definitely a very good feeling to come down to this field to play, especially tonight it’s great because there is 100 years of this going on, definitely a lot of history,” he said.
At the fence by the grandstand, father and son football team alumni Guy and Will Chapman were on hand to support the current squad. They took part in the halftime photo with the 1925 game ball.
“I played from 74 to 77, my older brother played, he graduated in like ’70 and my dad played in whatever year that was, and my uncles were in the 1940s,” Guy Chapman said. “Some of it was up at the original football field because this wasn’t the original football field.”
Will Chapman, graduated in 2018 and characterized the town’s connection to Friday Night Lights as something special for a “drive through town.”
“I think its really cool to be the first place, a small town that no one’s ever heard of,” he said.
The century-old football commemorating the 1925 game can be found in the Salt Creek Museum. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
An original light from the night game played on Nov. 19, 1925, in Midwest. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Midwest fans gathered to cheer on their Oilers. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Midwest High School welding class fabricated a sign to celebrate the school’s ties to football history. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Remembering A ‘Powerhouse’
Phil LeMaitre, a Midwest native, and author who has written a series of novels based on his experiences growing up near the Salt Creek oilfield, lives in Tennessee. But the former Oiler football player and 1986 graduate made sure he was present for the century celebration.
During the 1970s and 1980s, LeMaitre said the Midwest kids understood that their school had the first football game under lights in the west because an Illinois school claimed to be the first. That was later shown to be false.
LeMaitre said his era involved 11-man football in the old Powder River Conference.
“We were pretty much a powerhouse back in the late ‘70s through the 80s,” he said. LeMaitre said he tries not to brag but does bring up if the opportunity arises that “my high school played the first lighted football game.”
“It becomes an interesting conversational piece,” he said.
Midwest athletics designee Tosha Salway, who is in charge of athletic team schedules, carried the 100-year-old football out to the middle of the field for the special team photo, and said preparing for the night and the history was fun.
“It actually gets our name out there because we are so small and in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “So, it’s exciting.”
Across the field, a woman who identified herself as Riverside player Corbyn Godfrey’s mom, said her family talked about the significance of the game on the way over to Midwest.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, 100 years, it’s pretty awesome,” she said.
As the home team fell behind at halftime, Midwest school librarian Katie Bachmeier did her best to rouse those around her as the school’s fight song poured out over the loudspeakers.
Originally from Casper, she said she has been in Midwest for 20 years and shared how the past week, school colleagues supported her through the loss of her dad.
She came to the game to show support for her school.
“I bleed maroon and white,” she said.
(Cowboy State Daily Staff)
Casper Celebration
Veteran Natrona County High School football coach Steve Harshman is a 1981 graduate of Midwest High School and starred on the football team there. He was recruited to Black Hills State University where he also excelled as a center.
Harshman said Casper also plans to celebrate its half of the century anniversary next Friday, Oct. 17, when his Mustangs take on Cheyenne South. Brainard, a former Natrona County High School football player for Harshman, plans to take the 100-year-old football down for that game.
In the 1925 game, the Casper Mustangs crushed the Midwest squad 20-0.
A century later, the final score was just as disappointing: Riverside 57, Midwest 32.
Brainard said the Natrona County High School and Midwest teams are also planning a joint commemoration on Nov. 19, 100 years to the date from the first contest.
“We’re trying to come up with some ideas, we are not sure what we’re going to do yet, but we are going to do something under the lights in Midwest,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
