ThePennsylvania Keystoners was the idea for anAmerican football team thought up by then-Pittsburgh Pirates owner,Art Rooney, in 1939 to have a singleNational Football League franchise based in bothPittsburgh andPhiladelphia. The team would play half of its home games in each location.
During their early histories, the Pirates and the Eagles were among the weakest in the league. In his first eight years of operating the Pittsburgh franchise, Pirates founderArt Rooney was estimated to have lost $100,000. Meanwhile, the Eagles were owned by a syndicate headed byBert Bell, however the team lost $80,000 and 21 games in its first three seasons. Soon all of the team's investors left the franchise, and by the end of the1935 seasonBert Bell had the Eagles to himself. He became the coach,general manager, scout and public relations director, and took to selling tickets on downtown Philadelphia street corners. Because the rent was cheap, the team played in the 102,000 seat Municipal Stadium before at least 100,000 empty seats. According to one account, one rainy Sunday, only 50 people showed up for a game against theBrooklyn Dodgers; Bell invited those few fans up to the covered press box, where he provided free coffee and hot dogs. Neither the Eagles nor the Pirates-Steelers had posted a winning record in their first eight years of existence. Losses on the field were compounded by the combined loss of about $190,000 inDepression dollars.
The Steelers were so bad that Rooney sold them at the end of the1940 season toAlexis Thompson, a 26-year-old steel heir fromBoston frequently described in the press as "a well-heeled New York City playboy". Thompson renamed the Steelers the Ironmen, but he planned to move the franchise to Boston and play games inFenway Park. Eagles ownerBert Bell brokered the deal between Rooney and Thompson for $160,000, and Rooney used $80,000 of the proceeds to buy a partnership in the Eagles, which at the time was owned by Bell. The deal also involved the trade of several players between the two teams.
The two owners planned to field a combined Philadelphia-Pittsburgh team called the Keystoners that would play home games in both cities. The original proposition was that Thompson would buy the franchise and take the Pittsburgh club to Boston and Bell and Rooney would pool their interests in the Eagles to form a Philadelphia-Pittsburgh club, splitting the home games betweenForbes Field in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia'sMunicipal Stadium. Thompson, however, was unable to secure a place to play in Boston. After meeting with Rooney, plans changed whereby Thompson's club (ostensibly the former Steelers) would play in Philadelphia as the Eagles, while the Rooney-Bell owned team would play in Pittsburgh as the Steelers, effectively trading the two clubs between their cities.
Before the 1941 season, Rooney returned the name to Steelers back from the Ironmen. Bell began the season as the Steelers' coach, but after two losses, Rooney hiredAldo Donelli. Bell continued as part owner of the Steelers until 1946 when he was electedNFL commissioner. Bell served as commissioner until 1959 when he died of a heart attack atFranklin Field in Philadelphia during a game between two teams he had helped form, the Steelers and the Eagles.
The notion for a single team between the two cities was revived, when for one season in1943, forced to do so by player shortfalls brought on by World War II, the two clubs temporarily merged as thePhiladelphia-Pittsburgh "Steagles". The league only approved the merger for one year; Pittsburgh was willing to merge again for 1944 but not Philadelphia. This forced the Steelers to merge with theChicago Cardinals (asCard-Pitt) for 1944.