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Daily Oklahoma 9/9/71 (approximately)

Home of Famed Jim Thorpe Restored

(No. 20 in a series of profiles on sites of importance in Oklahoma history and culture. The site is listed in Washington, D.C., in the National Register of Historic Places.)

By Kent Ruth
If his material possessions were modest, not so his accomplishments. 
King Gustav of Sweden hailed James Francis ("Jim") Thorpe as the world's greatest athlete at the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm.
[[image]]
Jim Thorpe home at Yale.
The husky Sac and Fox had just become the first competitor ever to win both the pentathlon and the decathlon. And few indeed were inclined to argue with His Majesty.
Thorpe was born in 1888 near Prague. He died in 1953, at 64, in Los Angeles. 
From 1917 to 1923, while starring in both professional football and baseball, he lived in Yale in a modest 5-room bungalow that is believed to be the only house he ever owned.
After the Thorpes left Yale in 1923, the house changed hands. But in 1968 it was purchased by the Oklahoma historical society. 
Now restored, inside and out, to much the way it was when Jim, his wife and their three children lived in it, the house is open to the public as a museum/memorial to the state's most famous athlete. 
It was at Pennsylvania's Carlisle Institute, under Glenn S. "Pop" Warner, that Thorpe first achieved fame as a super-star. In 1911 and 1912 he was an All-American halfback.
Then, following Olympic honors and world-wide recognition, it was disclosed he had played semi-pro baseball two summers in unknowing violation of the strict amateurism code.
His name and achievements were erased from Olympic record books. Also forfeited: his many medals and the two gem-studded silver trophies, each weighing 280 pounds.
They are now on display in Lucerne, Switzerland. But daughter Gail has donated to the state her father's pre-Olympic medals.
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And nothing, really, can detract from the fact Thorpe was, as King Gustav said, the world's greatest athlete!
Also in Yale to honor the mighty Indian athlete: the Jim Thorpe Athletic Award Committee.
It operates an Oklahoma Athletic Hall of Fame and annually recognizes and rewards state high school seniors.
Thorpe is additionally honored, of course, in Oklahoma City where, as one of four state notables, his Charles Banks Wilson likeness in oil hangs in the Capitol rotunda.

REMEMBER DEANNA DURBIN?
Recorded
and Mon-

Art Contest
Is Planned
The Second Annual Del City

Ceramic Pots on Display
An exhibition of more than 100 ceramic pots by potter-sculptor David

create the first plate that goes into production of the Sequoyah Plate for Creek