Isn’t This A Strange Name?

“You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.”

-King Gustav of Sweden

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Names of towns and cities on the East Coast are rather predictable.

Here in Virginia, some names come from English aristocracy: Culpeper, Fairfax, Charlottesville and Jamestown.

Or there’s a town in England or Germany with the same name: Winchester, Bedford, Richmond, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Strasburg, Harrisonburg and Staunton.

Even this address, Castleton, is a small town in the UK (I visited it a few years ago).

Sometimes they kept the old name and slapped a “new” on the beginning: New York, New Jersey, New Haven, New London.

Or the name could have an Indian origin: Rappahannock, Shenandoah, Chesapeake, Manhattan,

So when I heard there was a town in Pennsylvania called “Jim Thorpe” I immediately thought, “That’s different. I want to go there!”

Jim Thorpe, PA

Have you heard of Jim Thorpe?

I hadn’t.

But when I told my 91-year-old father last night that I spent the weekend there, immediately he said, “Oh, the athlete.”

If you were a sports fan in the early 20th century, you knew the name Jim Thorpe.

He won gold medals in the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm.

Plus, he played professional baseball, basketball and football.

Not even Michael Jordan could play more than one sport professionally.

Now here’s the interesting part: Jim Thorpe never visited Jim Thorpe.

If you told me there was a town called “Mr. Vig” I guarantee you I’d be on the next plane there.

So why didn’t Jim visit his own town?

Jump over to the blog and tell me why you think Jim Thorpe never visited Jim Thorpe (no cheating by asking Senor Google or Professor AI.

And you can still guess what’s in this Jim Thorpe store.

Bonus points for fun, creative answers!