Eisenhower, described Thorpe: “He was able to do everything anyone else could, but he could do it better. 1 ranked Army team at West Point, Army’s left halfback, Cadet Dwight D. (Karen Lee Ensley)īut, he was best known for his football skills. Thorpe Football Monument, Memorial Park, Jim Thorpe, PA. When he attended Carlisle Indian School, a vocational school in Pennsylvania, he excelled in a diverse range of sports, including basketball, billiards, bowling, figure skating, golf, gymnastics, handball, hockey, lacrosse, rowing, swimming, tennis, and track and field. But it was his athletic skills that made Jim Thorpe famous. James Francis Thorpe, a member of the Thunder Clan of the Sac and Fox tribe, was fittingly called Wa-tho-huck, meaning “Bright Path.” Born in May 1887 or 1888 in Oklahoma Territory, he was a direct descendant of the famous warrior Chief Black Hawk. Though he likely never visited Mauch Chunk, his third wife, Patricia Thorpe, in a controversial move, arranged to have his body memorialized in this town. Intended to attract tourism, the town’s new name honored the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States. Originally founded in 1818 as Mauch Chunk (pronounced Mock Chunk), meaning “bear mountain” in the native Lenni Lenape language, the small boroughs of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk merged and adopted the name Jim Thorpe in 1954. Yet Jim Thorpe is sure to thrill the history lover with fiction-like melodrama and an intriguing mystery. Visitors to this eastern Pennsylvania town will be charmed by its exquisite Victorian mansions, quaint shops, and old-fashioned passenger railroad. Crowned one of the “most beautiful small towns in America,” Jim Thorpe could also be called one of the most fascinating historical small towns in the country.

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