Beech Tree News Network

The following is taken from the 10-22 edition of CBS Sunday Morning and reporter Mo Rocca.  Say the name Jim Thorpe and many would argue you’re talking about the greatest American athlete ever.  But there’s one place in America where the name Jim Thorpe is synonymous with home.  Nestled ibn the foothills of the Pocono mountains lies a charming Burrough once nicknamed “the Switzerland of America”.  Locals call it something else now: Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.  You couldn’t miss the name if you tried.  There’s Jim Thorpe neighborhood bank, Jim Thorpe Market, Jim Thorpe Borough and Jim Thorpe Arear High School.

Mayor Michael Safranco: “in 1971, you go somewhere, and people would ask where are you from.  I’d say Jim Thorpe.  They’d say I don’t want to know your name.  I want to know where you live.  Now what it has taken on, whenever someone asks where I’m from and I say “Jim Thorpe”, they say “I love that town”.  In case you’re wondering, yes the town is named after James Francis Thorpe, the man, who became famous worldwide after the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweeden.  To call Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete in American history isn’t a stretch because no athlete before or since has done what he did”.  David Maraniss wrote a book on Thorpe called Path Lit By Lightning.  The book tells Thorpe’s remarkable story.  

“No one has had that triad of being the first great NFL player, gold medal decathlon winner, and a major league baseball player.  He was also great at ballroom dancing, skating, swimming, lacrosse and even marbles! Thorpe also became an actor.  Thanks in part to his own activism, Native American characters were increasingly played by Native Americans, himself included.  Prague, Oklahoma was originally Indian territory when Thorpe was born there in 1887.  He was brought up on the Sac & Fox reservation.  His birthname, Watha Huck, translates to: Bright Path”.  

Thorpe had passed away long before Anita Thorpe came along.  But she spent her life learning her grandfather’s story.  “People would come up to us and say “are you related”? “I still get that to this day.  As a grandchild I just feel like it’s my honor to carry his name and to continue his story anyway that I possibly can”.  

Back in Jim Thorpe the town, where tourism is thriving, the story of Jim Thorpe the man gets a little complicated.  Thorpe never lived in the town Jim Thorpe.  After Jim Thorpe died in 1953, most of his family wanted him buried in Oklahoma.  His widow had other ideas and she struck a deal.  She gave her late husband’s body to a down on its luck region of the Poconos and the resort town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania was born.  For the full story of America’s greatest athlete, and how he ended up buried in a town he never lived in, listen to my favorite podcast not called Blendertainment, mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts.  And while you’re in podcast mode, check out mine called Blendertainment at the links below.  Catch you next week and happy listening!

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=w5jHghPVRmaTaP5ZEI-wzQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172