The team was put together by Kelley-Duluth Hardware Store owner M. C. Gebert with the help of Dewey Scanlon,[3] a college graduate who played football at Valparaiso University in Indiana.

[4] The Kelleys, residing in the northernmost city in the NFL at the time, had the disadvantage of not being able to play at home during late November and early December, due to the harsh winters in northern Minnesota.

The Eskimos joined in on the trend, becoming a traveling team (assumably representing the far northern states) and allowing themselves to play a far longer season than the Kelleys did.

In 1932, a Boston group headed by George Preston Marshall received the next expansion franchise; strong circumstantial evidence indicates that it was awarded the assets of the failed Tornadoes organization.

For instance, in 1974, Haugsrud wrote Halas and recalled that the Eskimos were relaunched in New Jersey as the Tornadoes, and that franchise was ultimately sold to Marshall's group.

[6] On May 18, 2015, local lawmakers of one town in the Duluth-Superior area passed a motion to bring the NFL back to the region via team relocation and also voted in favor of an outdoor football stadium despite no current means of financing it.