Many cities and towns in the English-speaking world are named for people, but scouring the atlas reveals very few that use their namesake’s first and last names. There’s Warner Robins, Georgia (although “Warner” was technically the famed Air Force general’s middle name), along with Albert Lea, Minnesota; John Day, Oregon; and a few others. But one example stands out: Not only is it named for one of the most famous celebrities of his time, but it’s a celebrity who never visited the town in question and had no real connections to the area! Come listen to the strange story of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
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Jim Thorpe was one of the most versatile athletes of his day, an Olympic gold medalist who also excelled in professional baseball, football, and basketball. Thorpe was a proud member of the Sac and Fox Indian tribe, and grew up on the tribe’s Oklahoma reservation. According to his family, that’s where he wished to be buried as well.
But the plot thickened in 1953, when Thorpe died. A fiscally thrifty Oklahoma governor vetoed $25,000 that the legislature had set aside for a monument to Thorpe. The slight angered Thorpe’s third wife, Patsy, who had a reputation for being difficult (and who, to be fair, had been left in a precarious financial situation by her husband’s death). In an amazingly audacious breach of funeral etiquette, Patsy Thorpe interrupted her husband’s tribal burial service accompanied by Oklahoma state troopers, whisked Jim’s body into a hearse, and departed, leaving the rest of his relatives there gaping.
Patsy proceeded to shop the body around to various towns, hoping to find one that would pony up for a nice memorial and a little extra cash. (“FOR SALE: one American sports hero. Slightly used.”) Finally, tiny Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania agreed to her terms. Mauch Chunk re-buried Thorpe’s coffin (in soil brought in from Oklahoma and from Stockholm, site of his great Olympic glory) and even changed its name on the map to “Jim Thorpe.” The town fathers hoped that tourism dollars could keep the little hamlet afloat even as the local coal industry died out.
But the Jim Thorpe story isn’t over yet! Thorpe’s sons worked for decades to get their dad’s body returned to his native Oklahoma, and in April 2013, a federal judge obliged, on the novel grounds that Thorpe’s body constituted a Native American cultural artifact that could not legally be seized from his tribe. The town of Jim Thorpe has appealed the ruling, so there could be more years of legal wrangling ahead before Jim Thorpe reaches his final resting place. Whether that resting place is in a town named for him or not is anybody’s guess.