Jim Thorpe

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox Nation in Indian Territory (what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma). As a youth, he attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was a three-time All-American for the school's football team under coach Pop Warner. After his Olympic success in 1912, which included a record score in the decathlon, Thorpe added a victory in the All-Around Championship of the Amateur Athletic Union. In 1913, Thorpe signed with the New York Giants, and played six seasons in Major League Baseball between 1913 and 1919. Thorpe joined the Canton Bulldogs American football team in 1915, helping them win three professional championships. He later played for six teams in the National Football League (NFL). Thorpe played as part of several all-American Indian teams throughout his career, and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of American Indians. From 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was nominally the first president of the American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL in 1922. He played professional sports until age 41, the end of his sports career coinciding with the start of the Great Depression. Thorpe struggled to earn a living after that, working several odd jobs. He suffered from alcoholism and lived his last years in failing health and poverty. Thorpe was married three times and had eight children – including Grace Thorpe, an environmentalist and Native rights activist – before suffering from heart failure and dying in 1953.

In Their Own Story

The two cross-river boroughs merged in 1954 and renamed the new municipality Jim Thorpe in his honor, despite Thorpe never setting foot in the Borough while alive. The municipality then obtained the athlete's remains from his widow and erected a monument to the Oklahoma native, who began his sports career 100 miles southwest, as a student at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The monument site contains his tomb, two statues of him in athletic poses, and historical markers describing his life story. The grave rests on mounds of soil from Thorpe's native Oklahoma and from the Stockholm Olympic Stadium in which he won his Olympic medals. On June 24, 2010, one of Jim Thorpe's sons, Jack Thorpe, sued the town for his father's remains, citing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. On April 19, 2013, Caputo ruled in favor of William and Richard Thorpe, ruling that the borough amounts to a museum under the law. This ruling was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on October 23, 2014. The US Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal on October 5, 2015, assuring that Jim Thorpe's remains will stay in Carbon County.

Reader's Guide

Thorpe lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored Thorpe's Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days. Official IOC records still listed Thorpe as co-champion in decathlon and pentathlon until 2022, when it was decided to restore him as the sole champion in both events. The town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor. It has a monument site that contains his remains, which were the subject of legal action.

Did You Know?

• Thorpe was baptized 'Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe' in the Catholic Church.
• His Sauk name Wa-Tho-Huk translates as 'Bright path the lightning makes as it goes across the sky', often shortened to 'Bright Path'.
• Thorpe appeared in several films and was portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe – All-American.
• The Associated Press ranked him as the 'greatest athlete' from the first 50 years of the 20th century.
• The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted Thorpe as part of its inaugural class in 1963.