IN A CLEARING on a grassy hillside near a two-lane highway in eastern Pennsylvania lie the bones of Jim Thorpe, the man considered by many to be the world's greatest athlete. Fashioned of polished stone the color of red riverbank mud, his tomb is oblong and almost 6 feet tall. A truck rumbles past, then another. The rustle of wind blows low across the glade and through a line of trees. Few people stop to pay respect to this legendary Native American.
The crypt is at the edge of a small town Thorpe was never known to visit, a place with which he had no known connection. The community, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, took his name to claim his body, and its residents think their town has won a decades long battle to keep his remains as a tourist destination. Thorpe's sons, the last of his living children, think his spirit wanders the earth in sorrow because he has never had a proper ceremony for the dead. They say they will fight for his remains until they can return him to his original home in Oklahoma.
by Kurt Streeter. ESPN.com July 28, 2016
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