The inspiration for the Chiefs’ logo can be found on a San Francisco 49ers helmet

What’s old will become new again. Well, for a day at least.

The San Francisco 49ers will be wearing throwback uniforms for Sunday’s game against the Chiefs at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.The Athletic’s David Lombardi said the 49ers will be wearing uniforms from the 1994 season.

One thing that won’t change is the 49ers’ traditional gold helmets with the interlocking SF emblem. They’ve been around since 1964, but that logo has been used since 1962 when the helmets were silver.

After moving the franchise from Dallas to Kansas City ahead of the 1963 season, Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt quite literally sat down to design a logo himself, finding inspiration in the 49ers emblem.

“I was scratching around on the pad,” Hunt told former Star writer Kent Pulliam in 1994. “I got a picture of the 49ers helmet; they had those interlocking letters, and I thought that was very attractive. A lot of baseball teams have that interlocking letter design.

“I drew it up, and I liked it. I am sure I showed it to Jack Steadman and Hank (Stram), but we didn’t do anything more than that. Now we would do surveys of public opinion and get all this input about what would look good and what we should do. If we had done all those things back then, the AFL would have never been started.”

SportsLogos.net noted the oval shape of the 49ers logo also initially appealed to Hunt. But he ultimately went with an Arrowhead shape with the interlocking KC.

Hunt’s creation was used as the Chiefs helmet design starting in 1963 and became the team’s primary logo in 1972, replacing one that had been in use after the team arrived in Kansas City.

That primary logo, which was used for off-the-field purposes, can be seen at Pro Football Reference. That design showed a Native American man running with a football. In the background were the states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Blue Friday?

Here’s an interesting thought for Chiefs fans: When Hunt formed the Chiefs franchise, his first choice of colors was Columbia Blue and red, that Star story noted.

However, the Houston Oilers founder wanted that color scheme for his franchise, so Hunt went with red, gold and white. If Hunt had gotten his way, maybe fans would be celebrating Blue Friday during Chiefs season.

The Chiefs’ logo would’ve looked different, too. But that design had an impact beyond simply being a helmet emblem.

“Had we not had that emblem on our helmet, Arrowhead Stadium probably would have been named something else,” Hunt told Pulliam. “We were looking for something distinctive to set it apart from other stadiums. But otherwise it might have been called something else.”