Great question, I was curious myself ... especially since I am in the middle of a research project on Carl Junction football. I have every score, opponent, date and location of every Carl Junction game from 1920-present.
I have been working on 1910-1919 ... found some scores from 1916 and 1917, but a lot of gaps still to fill. The hard part was trying to find the year Carl Junction started a high school. Earlier this fall, had a breakthrough as a resident of the community showed me a graduation announcement from 1903, she said it was from the first ever graduation class from Carl Junction High School. Which means the earliest possible football team they could have had was fall of 1902. Working toward filling in the gap from 1902-1920.
Anvil Welch has been a HUGE help, he has kept team records for football, basketball and baseball in Southwest Missouri since his days at the Springfield News Leader back in the 1960's. He has records from high schools that don't even exist today. He still works on his records daily and is not afraid to call schools and coaches to pick their brains about teams, records and anything sports related.
A few years back (2013), was able to help my alma mater Field Kindley High School in Coffeyville uncover a record book from the school vault that had every head coach and team record for football since the start of the program in 1899. I'm working on the baseball records for Field Kindley now.
