[2] Amos Alonzo Stagg, football coach and head of the Athletic Department at the time, was eager for a band to support his teams.

The band's original primary purpose was to support the football team in their matchups against other Midwestern and East Coast universities.

Typical opponents of the time included such schools as Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern, and other universities known today as football powerhouses.

In fact, the University of Chicago has a perfect 4–0 record against Notre Dame in football; the most recent matchup between the two schools took place in 1899.

With a fluctuating membership of 50 to 100 musicians, the band performed field maneuvers in the classic Big Ten style, spelling out letters and words as wells as forming pictures.

The band performed at all home football games at Stagg Field, which stood on the current site of the Regenstein Library.

[6] After Purdue University brought its own large bass drum to a 1921 Chicago-Purdue football game,[7] Big Bertha was donated in 1922 by C. D. Greenleaf, the president of C. G. Conn Company, a well-known manufacturer of instruments in Indiana.

[10] Big Bertha came out of seclusion when a movie about the life of the great John Philip Sousa was to be made and was offered a role in the film, "Stars and Stripes.

"[11] In 1955, Colonel D. Harold Byrd, a long-time benefactor of the Longhorn Band, purchased Bertha from the University of Chicago and gave it a new home in the heart of Texas.