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Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Though Jim Thorpe posed in this starting stance for track, circa 1910, his favorite sport was football. He did not compete in track and field in 1910 and 1911, though that is what he is remembered for in the 1912 Olympics.
Jim Thorpe, a Native American, was on the U.S. Olympic team in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912. He participated in the pentathlon, decathlon, high jump and long jump. He won eight of the 15 individual events in the pentathlon and decathlon, which earned him gold medals for each. He was born in 1887 in what became Prague, Oklahoma, which is southwest of Tulsa. He played baseball and football for multiple professional teams, but was ultimately hailed for his efforts to advance the plight of Native Americans.
As Jim Thorpe participated in the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, the News Herald carried a photo and short story about his successful exploits.
JIm Thorpe played for three major league baseball teams over six years from 1913 to 1919. He is pictured here in a New York Giants uniform. He also played for the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves.
Jim Thorpe was a multi-sport athlete from Oklahoma. Courtesy | Wikipedia Commons
Jim Thorpe was hired to be master of ceremonies for C.C. Pyle's Cross-Country Follies, a vaudeville show that shadowed the route of his Bunion Derby runners in 1929. The runners and show appeared in the Joplin Theatre located at 702 Joplin Avenue on May 1, 1929.
The Kansas City Star highlighted the up and coming athlete, James Thorpe of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in November 1911. An all-around athlete Thorpe had led Carlisle's football team to a winning season in 1911. His ability to excel in football, baseball, basketball, track and field "left the world of college trainers astonished."
C.C. Pyle’s Cross-Country Follies of vaudeville acts followed the Bunion Derby runners who ran from New York City to Los Angeles in 1929. The follies performed in the Coleman Theatre as runners arrived in Miami, Oklahoma, on May 2, 1929. Olympic champion Jim Thorpe and past Bunion Derby champion Andy Payne were emcees. By the race’s end, Pyle was bankrupted by the race and owed Thorpe $1,000 for his services.
Jim Thorpe died on March 28, 1953 at age 65. His tomb is in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Though Jim Thorpe posed in this starting stance for track, circa 1910, his favorite sport was football. He did not compete in track and field in 1910 and 1911, though that is what he is remembered for in the 1912 Olympics.
Jim Thorpe, a Native American, was on the U.S. Olympic team in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912. He participated in the pentathlon, decathlon, high jump and long jump. He won eight of the 15 individual events in the pentathlon and decathlon, which earned him gold medals for each. He was born in 1887 in what became Prague, Oklahoma, which is southwest of Tulsa. He played baseball and football for multiple professional teams, but was ultimately hailed for his efforts to advance the plight of Native Americans.
As Jim Thorpe participated in the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, the News Herald carried a photo and short story about his successful exploits.
JIm Thorpe played for three major league baseball teams over six years from 1913 to 1919. He is pictured here in a New York Giants uniform. He also played for the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves.
Jim Thorpe was a multi-sport athlete from Oklahoma. Courtesy | Wikipedia Commons
Jim Thorpe was hired to be master of ceremonies for C.C. Pyle's Cross-Country Follies, a vaudeville show that shadowed the route of his Bunion Derby runners in 1929. The runners and show appeared in the Joplin Theatre located at 702 Joplin Avenue on May 1, 1929.
The Kansas City Star highlighted the up and coming athlete, James Thorpe of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in November 1911. An all-around athlete Thorpe had led Carlisle's football team to a winning season in 1911. His ability to excel in football, baseball, basketball, track and field "left the world of college trainers astonished."
C.C. Pyle’s Cross-Country Follies of vaudeville acts followed the Bunion Derby runners who ran from New York City to Los Angeles in 1929. The follies performed in the Coleman Theatre as runners arrived in Miami, Oklahoma, on May 2, 1929. Olympic champion Jim Thorpe and past Bunion Derby champion Andy Payne were emcees. By the race’s end, Pyle was bankrupted by the race and owed Thorpe $1,000 for his services.
Jim Thorpe died on March 28, 1953 at age 65. His tomb is in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Renowned as the greatest American athlete of the 20th century, Jim Thorpe’s athletic prowess was not enough to guarantee an easy life.
His ability to excel in multiple sports did open doors for him and allowed him to be a voice for Native Americans in sports and movies. Yet he faced challenges, some of his own making, with a dogged perseverance to go his own way.
Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe was born to Hiram and Charlotte (Vieux) Thorpe on May 22, 1887, near Prague in Indian Territory. His father’s ancestry was Irish and Sac & Fox while his mother was French and Potawatomi. Jacobus, James or Jim, had a twin, Charlie. The boys were raised as Sac & Fox. In keeping with their customs, Jim was given the name Wa-Tho-Huk — Bright Lightning or Bright Path.
They went to a Sac & Fox school in Stroud. His brother Charlie died of pneumonia at age 8. Jim ran away from school multiple times to the point his father sent him to the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, a boarding school for Native American children.
His mother’s death in 1898 led Jim to leave school to work on a horse ranch. Six years later he reconciled with his father and returned to school, this time to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
At the school, Thorpe’s coach was Glenn “Pop” Warner, later a football coaching legend. Warner watched Thorpe wearing overalls high jump over 5 feet. Thorpe’s potential in track led him to enter the Olympic trials held in St. Louis for the high jump in 1908. While he didn’t make the team, it was a portent of things to come. The young man had only been at the school a year when his father died. He left school again, but returned in 1909. At first Warner had Thorpe competing in track and field where he won 14 events in 1909. In 1911, he began training for the 1912 Olympics.
Warner described Thorpe as “the greatest drop-kicker and best all-around athlete Carlisle ever owned.”
Thorpe grew into a one-man scoring machine for the football team. Carlisle played traditional Ivy League powerhouses of Harvard and Yale as well as West Point. They crushed their opponents, astonishing the schools and spectators alike. As a halfback, Thorpe played offense and defense, punted, kicked field goals and threw forward passes. Said St. Louis University football great Henry Lindsay, Thorpe made “monkies” out of them. The school posted winning seasons with just a single loss from 1911-1913. Thorpe was Warner’s linchpin.
The 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, proved to be the high point of Thorpe’s career. He entered two new events, the pentathlon and decathlon, as well as the high jump and long jump. In the pentathlon he won four of its five events for the gold. The same day he placed fourth in the high jump. In the long jump he placed seventh.
The decathlon displayed his stamina. He placed in the top four in all 10 events, even running the 1,500 meters in mismatched shoes after his were stolen. His score of 8,413 out of 10,000 stood as a record for almost 20 years. Said Sweden’s King Gustav V, “You, sir, are the most wonderful athlete in the world.”
Several months later, a newspaper reported Thorpe had played semi-pro baseball in 1908. Thorpe had made no secret of it to Warner or teammates. Though the time to contest the medals was long past, the U.S. Olympic committee decided to recall his medals and expunge his records. Instead of supporting Thorpe, Warner denied he knew the situation and drafted a statement for Thorpe to sign admitting blame. When the medals were sent back to Sweden, the Swedes tried to give them to the silver medalists, who refused them, saying they belonged to Thorpe.
Professional baseball teams clamored for the renowned Olympian. He chose the New York Giants though he only played 19 of their 151 games in 1913. He served to draw crowds. In the world tour of the Giants and Chicago White Sox in 1913, the route came through Joplin to play the Joplin Miners in October.
The Globe reported a brass band from Nevada, Missouri, came to serenade Thorpe and his wife at the Connor Hotel. More than 100 people crowded the dining room to catch a glimpse of them. At the game in Miners Park, 5,000 fans waited while Thorpe was benched for six innings. In the seventh, Thorpe stepped forward as coach. “The crowd rose to its feet to cheer the big athlete.”
He played for the Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Braves until 1919. One writer suggested he needed better coaching to prepare him for the curve ball. He was scheduled for an exhibition appearance in 1917 in Joplin, but was traded to the Reds before the event.
However, he had not left football. He played for the Canton Bulldogs in 1915 for $250 a game. He played baseball in the summer and football in the winter. When the American Football Association formed in 1920, he was named president.
When he retired from football at age 41 in 1928, he had played for six teams. He even barnstormed for a traveling basketball team in 1927-1928.
His name still drew crowds. When C.C. Pyle organized his second Bunion Derby in 1929, he hired Thorpe as emcee for Cross-Country Follies, a vaudeville show that accompanied runners along the route. On May 1, 1929. the racers reached Joplin heading west. The show played in the Joplin Theatre with Thorpe as emcee. The next day they performed at the Coleman Theatre in Miami. In Oklahoma papers, Thorpe drew more attention than the runners. Yet foreshadowing Thorpe’s future financial problems, Pyle went bankrupt when the race concluded. He owed Thorpe $1,000.
Thorpe was able to parlay his name into movies for bit parts as an Indian or athlete, and did his own stunts. He worked multiple jobs from night watchman to construction worker to supplement the paltry film wages. At the time problems with alcohol complicated his life and led to divorces.
Through the 1930s he became an unofficial agent for Native Americans trying to land movie roles. He and Cecilia Blanchard founded the Indian Center in Los Angeles in 1937 with a grant approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Called the ‘welcome wagon’ for Native Americans in Southern California, it provided leads and coaching for aspiring actors. Thorpe gave time and money, meager as it was, to give others a chance. Wherever possible he used his connections to talk about Native Americans.
By the late 1940s, alcohol and constant moves left him and his third wife, Patsy, in dire straits. He needed surgery for lip cancer in 1951 though he was broke. She publicly appealed for assistance and received some help. He died of a heart attack at home on March 28, 1953 at age 65.
Lauded as the greatest athlete of the 20th century, controversy still followed him after his death. His family and a Pennsylvania town, renamed Jim Thorpe, contested his remains. A court battle left him interred in Pennsylvania where his third wife had buried him. His medals were restored after a decades long fight in 1982. He was officially reinstated as gold medalist in 2022.
For him, celebrity was not about personal fame, but a means to highlight the needs of Native Americans. For that he was given the Sac & Fox nickname, Akapamata, which means ‘’caregiver.’’ For him that was enough.
Bill Caldwell is the retired librarian at The Joplin Globe. If you have a question you’d like him to research, send an email to wcaldwell@joplinglobe.com or leave a message at 417-627-7261.
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