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The Fern Hill Underdogs Demand Their Shot

Excluded from the city's grammar school league due to municipal boundaries, the scrappy Fern Hill team issues a public challenge to the league's best.

The story, cleaned up

A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.

The Fern Hill grammar school team, although not admitted to the grammar league owing to the fact that it lies outside the city limits, will probably play the champions of the grammar league before the end of the season. Manager Denny Soderholm of the Fern Hill boys today issued a challenge to either the pennant taker of the grammar league or to any other team of the league, and arrangements for a game are now pending. The Fern Hill team is one of the strongest aggregations of the many juvenile teams of the city. It has played about seventeen games this season and has only lost two.

“The Fern Hill team is one of the strongest aggregations of the many juvenile teams of the city.”

— Printed in The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909
Then · 1909117 years apartNow · 2026

This story captures a classic 'town vs. gown' dynamic of historical Tacoma, where rapid suburban growth often outpaced administrative boundaries. Today, youth sports leagues frequently grapple with similar issues of eligibility, though usually managed through regional districts rather than city limit disputes.

The original page

The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909-05-08. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, MAY 8, 1909, Page 2
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.18090, -122.43200 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗