15 small towns in the US that used to be home to major professional sports teams

• The Hammond Pros of Hammond, Indiana were the first team to have an African-American head coach in the NFL.

• La Rue, Ohio is the smallest town ever to be home to an NFL team.

• The Troy Trojans played in MLB's record game for lowest attendance ever. Only six people attended.

• Waterloo, Iowa was home to the only major league sport to be based in Iowa.

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Today, many major cities across the United States are home to franchise sports teams. The Green Bay Packers are the biggest exception to that, having a population of 104,879, but Green Bay wasn't the only small city to be home to a professional team.

While the teams that used to call these places home are defunct or grew into larger teams in larger cities, they still played a role in the beginning of major pro sports leagues like the NFL, MLB, and NBA.

Below we take you through the smallest towns that were once home to professional teams.

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