Jim Thorpe's Son Seeks Return of Remains

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By MARYCLAIRE DALE (AP) – Jun 24, 2010

PHILADELPHIA — A son of sports great Jim Thorpe sued the Pennsylvania town that bears his father's name Thursday, demanding that it return his remains to Oklahoma under a federal law designed to give Native American artifacts back to their tribal homelands.
Jack Thorpe, 72, of Shawnee, Okla., sued in federal court in Scranton, saying he had waited until the last of his half-sisters died to avoid a family conflict over the lawsuit.
"The bones of my father do not make or break your town," Jack Thorpe, a past chief of the Sac and Fox tribe, said of the defendants, who include numerous current and former town officials. "I resent using my father as a tourist attraction."
His father, a native Oklahoman born into the tribe, overcame humble roots to win the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Olympics. Jim Thorpe later earned enviable sums playing professional football and baseball, and somewhat less playing the Indian in B-list Hollywood movies, then struggled financially before his March 1953 death in California at age 64.

Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pa., contributed to this report.

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