text: On August 14, the first meeting of the new league was held in Chicago. Charter memberships were issued to six original cities — Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. The league was officially christened the American Football League on August 22. Ralph Wilson was extended the league's seventh franchise for Buffalo, New York, on October 28 and Billy Sullivan became the league's eighth team's owner for Boston on November 22. Minneapolis withdrew its franchise from the AFL in November after receiving an offer for a team in the NFL, and Oakland, California instead joined the AFL as the Oakland Raiders.
  Early years in Dallas
  For the Texans' inaugural season, team owner Lamar Hunt pursued both legendary University of Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson and New York Giants defensive assistant Tom Landry to lead his Texans franchise. Wilkinson opted to stay at Oklahoma, while Landry was destined to coach the NFL's franchise in Dallas, to be called the Cowboys. In mid-December 1959 Hunt settled on a relatively unknown assistant coach from the University of Miami, Hank Stram. "One of the biggest reasons I hired Hank was that he really wanted the job", Hunt explained. "It turned out to be a very lucky selection on my part."
  The Texans were very fortunate to have Don Klosterman as their head talent man. Klosterman had a penchant for luring star talent away from the NFL, and for finding talent otherwise undiscovered.