World Famous Athlete Jim Thorpe

The house Thorpe made his home still stands in Yale. He and his first wife, Iva Miller, bought it in 1917 and lived there until 1923, years when he played major league baseball and starred for the Canton Bulldogs. Their first child, James Jr., died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 at the age of three. Yale was an oil town then: a gusher came in on the Sarah Rector farm in October 1913, and by 1915 the field had fourteen refineries. The Jim Thorpe House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

What the plaque says

World Famous Athlete Jim Thorpe At the Olympic games in Stock- holm, 1912, American Indian Thorpe was the winner in both the Pentathlon and Decathlon contests. The King of Sweden de- clared him, "The greatest athlete in the World." Thorpe made his home near here in Yale, 1917.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pawnee Nation Museum — 17 mi
  The Pawnee Nation's own museum in Pawnee, keeping the Nation's objects and the record of a military tradition it traces from the Pawnee Scouts of 1864 to the code talkers of World War II.

More markers nearby

• Turkey Track Ranch — 9.2 mi
• Outlaw Battle — 11 mi
• Oak Park Cemetery — 13 mi
• Pawnee Agency — 17 mi