Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania

my guess is that very few people here have ever heard of Jim Thorpe. If you are interested, try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe

But, thats not the purpose of my post. I went to Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania) today with my friend. I had always assumed that the town was named Jim Thorpe because he was born there, or grew up there, or something.....

I come to find out that he had never even visited the then town of Mauch Chaunk.

after his death the town wanted to attract business, and they PAID Thorpe's widow to bury him there.

While its a cute town, I'm stunned. Thousands of people MUST visit the town every year, assuming some link to Thorpe. But no, they just bought the name and his corpse to attract tourists:eek:

Well now THAT'S a bit of Americana, isn't it? Thanks for sharing, catlover. It's a real oddity.

OMG, how strange is that. :confused:

Still, it's a beautiful place. Been camping up on Mauch Chunk Lake lots, love it there. (I grew up about a 45 min drive south of JT) One great hike is up the side of Glen Ononco Falls. Oh I love that place!!! It's all nice and neat and has park rangers now, but we used to just go up and hang out and drink wine, then fill up the big bottles with water right from the stream and stick it in the fridge at home! Went up there once on a freezing, iced over New Year's Day with a big fat black dog who almost got stuck because he never had so much excersize in his life, lol! Once about ten of us jumped off the bridge near the bottom of the falls, where the Lehigh River runs past, it was about ----oh I don't know, more than four stories high I suppose, all at once! It took forever to fall down. Me and a bunch of guys. Of course they all jumped after I dared my one guy friend to jump with me, and he did. We both jumped, then all the other guys figured if the girl could do it.....lol.

Jim Thorpe; oh the memories!!! haha.

okay waterfall--i just got back from mauch chunk lake--and went to jim thorpe afterwards.

i live in schuylkill county--where did you live?

I grew up near Northampton and Bath, right in between. That would be nine miles due north of the northern Allentown/Bethlehem borders.

I love camping at Mauch Chunk Lake!

I love camping at Mauch Chunk Lake!

so do I!

;)

At first I was like,"Who the hell is Jim Thorpe?",after thinking his name was just some common name unlike an Abraham Lincoln or Benjamin Franklin in my opinion.So I read about him at Wikipedia.
This guy made me say Whoa! Impressive!He is very admirable for his athletic participation and successes.