Supreme Court rules on Jim Thorpe’s remains

More than a half-century has passed since state troopers barged into an American Indian burial ceremony in Oklahoma and seized the body of Jim Thorpe so it could be transported halfway across the country.

It was his third wife who orchestrated the move, intent on having Thorpe interred in a small Pennsylvania town named after the legendary athlete.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by his sons and two American Indian tribes to have the body returned to Oklahoma, the Associated Press reported.

Thorpe was born in Oklahoma on the Sac and Fox Reservation. He went on to become a star in football, baseball and track, winning the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

When he died in 1953, at 64, Patsy Thorpe became angered by Oklahoma’s refusal to build him a memorial site. Two struggling towns in Pennsylvania stepped in, agreeing to merge and name themselves Jim Thorpe.

They erected a red-granite mausoleum with statuary that for years has been a tourist attraction.

The legal fight to return Thorpe’s body to his home state began several years ago. The Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling that he stay put.