The 1904 Olympic Marathon Mess

The games of the Third Olympiad were the first Olympics to be held on American soil. After St. Louis wrestled away the chance to host the games from Chicago, they lumped the event in with the Louisiana Purchase Expo and World Fair. 

The Olympic Marathon, an event that everyone looked forward to, was a mess from start to finish. Full of comedy, danger, and cheating. Travel back in time with Curator 135 and learn about all of the shenanigans that took place. 

It got so bad that the International Olympic Committee tried to have marathons removed from further Olympic games. 

Transcript

Welcome to Year Four of the Curator135 Podcast

I’m your host Nathan Olli and this is

Episode 68 - The 1904 Olympic Marathon Mess

Before we begin I wanted to mention that this episode may sound a little different than typical episodes, but everything discussed actually happened. 

Welcome sports fans to the games of the third Olympiad. We’re coming to you live from St. Louis, Missouri. Despite it only being day two of six of the official 1904 Olympics, the athletic festival has been going on since July 1st and will continue well into November. Why? I’m not entirely sure but here’s what we know so far.

In the future, the Olympic games will last a little over two weeks, but these 1904 games will last just shy of 150 days. These six days between August 29th and September 3rd will mostly consist of the track and field events, everything else already happened or is later in the year. Even if it’s not an Olympic event, there's a solid chance that someone will try and slap the Olympic name on it. By the time this wraps up in November, you won’t be sure which were Olympic sports and which weren’t.  

International Olympics Committee Founder Pierre de Coubertin and The IOC first considered Philadelphia and New York before finally settling on Chicago, Illinois. Shortly after making the announcement, St. Louis stepped in and began making threats. In order to force the International Olympic Committee’s hand, organizers of the upcoming Louisiana Purchase Exposition and World’s Fair in St. Louis worked to secure a deal with the Amateur Athletic Union to hold the 1904 Track and Field Championships as part of the Expo.  

Pierre de Coubertin abandoned his plans with Chicago and reluctantly gave the nod to St. Louis. He knew the Olympics wouldn’t stand a chance in competition with a World’s Fair and a Track and Field Championship. So now we have these Olympic games crammed in the middle of everything else going on here this year. If people aren’t burned out yet, they soon will be. 

The exposition was meant to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase but so much planning, money and time was needed, it took them until April of 1804 to officially begin the expo. Organizers had put so much time and effort into the event, they weren’t going to allow something like the Olympics to potentially draw away visitors, they’ll just lump it in as part of the package. 

Local, state, and federal funds for the World’s Fair totalled just over $15 million dollars which is the equivalent to nearly $500 Million in 2024. There are more than 60 countries represented at the World’s Fair and 45 of the 47 states are here with us as well. By the time the fair is over in December, projections show that nearly 19.7 million people will have attended. 

With that kind of turn out for the World’s Fair, that has to translate well for the Olympic games, right? Not exactly. 

Fun fact, Coubertin decided not to even attend the games here in St. Louis, stating, “I had a sort of presentiment that the third Olympiad would match the mediocrity of the town.” Ouch. 

Before we get to today’s main event, let’s run through some things that we know so far about these, our games of the third olympiad. 

We will have boxing making its Olympic debut here in St. Louis. For fans of Greco-Roman-style wrestling, you’ll be saddened to know that it has been replaced by freestyle wrestling. Our non-medal awarding, demonstration sports include basketball, hurling, American football and Gaelic football and we will see a demonstration of women’s boxing during this week of competition. The only other sport that female athletes can compete in is archery. 

Speaking of competition, let’s talk about all of the great nations that have shown up and also not shown up here in St. Louis. Due to the ongoing European tensions caused by the Russo–Japanese War and the fact that it would take forever to get to St. Louis, not too many top tier athletes from other countries will be competing. Once you take a steam ship across the ocean, you’d need to travel from a port city by train or horseback, possibly buggy and or zeppelin. Anyone coming from overseas should have left months ago. However, we will see a great number of fine athletes from the U.S. and our neighbors to the north, Canada. 

580 of the 650 athletes here at the Olympics are from North America. 10 other nations are represented including Australia, Austria, Cuba, France, Germany,  Great Britain,  Greece, Hungary, South Africa, and Switzerland. Italy, Norway and Newfoundland will one day say that they were here too but I haven’t seen any sign of them. 

In a bit of exciting news, this will be the first Olympic games to give out Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Spoiler alert, the United States will win 83 percent of the medals awarded. 

These Olympics along with the World’s Fair have not gone without controversy of course. Just a couple of weeks ago, event organizers held what was known as “Anthropology Days.” 

Anthropology Days was a two-day event with competitors brought in from “uncivilized tribes” that were featured in various “human zoo” exhibits at the World’s Fair. 

That can’t be true, you’re saying. Oh yes. Yes it can. 

Earlier in the year, over one thousand Filipinos were sent to St. Louis. After the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquired places like Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. William H. Taft, who was the civil governor of the Philippines at the time, gave permission to the World’s Fair organizers to set up a Philippines exhibition in an attempt to "showcase the new colony."

Filipinos weren’t the only ones ‘shown off’ at the expo. 

There were Ainu people from Japan, “Patagonians” from the Andes, Pygmies from Africa and members of fifty-one different First Nations of North America. A list of native americans that included Chief Joseph, Comanche soldier Quanah Parker, and the Apache leader Geronimo. Geronimo was brought in to pose for pictures with white visitors. For a nickel you could have a photo with an Apache leader. That’s if he wasn’t busy playing the role of the Sioux leader Sitting Bull in daily reenactments of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Back to Anthropology Days. So members of the various groups I just mentioned were paid to participate in traditional Olympic events such as long jump, archery and javelin.  Organizers also threw in events like greased pole climbing and mud throwing. The man in charge of the “Anthropology Days” event, James Sullivan, Olympics Organizer, hoped to show off the tribesmen’s natural born athletic ability. 

Unfortunately these men were in some cases sick, uncomfortable, in a strange land and were given absolutely no instruction as to how these ‘games’ worked. Sullivan was quoted as saying that these events were proof that, “the savage has been a very much overrated man from an athletic point of view.” Some of the more decent humans around, called the games demeaning and racist. Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin, never one to mince words, called Anthropology Days an “outrageous charade,” and said, “it will, of course, lose its appeal when black men, red men and yellow men learn to run, jump and throw, and leave the white men behind them.”

Alright, now that you have an idea of what kind of lunacy has been happening here in St. Louis all year, it’s time for the race that everyone has been waiting for. 

The men's marathon will run over a distance of 24 miles. It may look a little different this year but that’s only due to the poor organization, execution and officiating that the 1904 games brought us.

It should be noted that ideally, you would begin a marathon in the morning when temperatures are cooler, like the 67 degrees it was this morning. Right now, the sun is at its peak. It’s nearly 90 degrees now and hasn’t rained in a week which will play nicely as these men are running down dusty country roads.

To begin, our runners will circle the stadium track five times, roughly one and two thirds of a mile. From there, it’s a terribly designed course that winds not only through country roads but also busy St. Louis streets. We should also let listeners know that absolutely nothing has been done to clear obstacles for these gentlemen. They will consistently have to dodge afternoon, crosstown traffic, delivery wagons, baby strollers, trains, trolley cars and dogs. If anyone survives, the course will end back here in the stadium and the winner will get to meet the lovely Alice Lee Roosevelt, daughter of our current president, Theodore Roosevelt. Listen to Episode 24 of the Curator 135 podcast to learn more about her.

It looks like Andarín Carvajal has arrived. Carvajal is a mailman from Havana, Cuba. He’s earned notoriety for his walking and running exhibitions across the length of Cuba. He was almost our ninth no-show. Carvajal stopped in New Orleans on his way here and lost all of his money gambling. He had to hitchhike and walk to the stadium. As we can see, he’s still dressed in street clothes and is now hastily cutting off the bottom half of his pants, making them more like shorts. 

Yesterday we had 40 athletes registered, but there are only 32 now standing along the starting line, representing a total of seven nations. Eight men have dropped out before the race even began. Hopefully that is not a sign of things to come.   

Firing the starting gun today will be former Missouri governor David R. Francis. He is the namesake of this newly built Francis Olympic Field here in St. Louis.

There’s the gun, and they’re off. The first Olympic marathon race held in the U.S. is underway.

As the men make their way around the track Frank Pierce of the United States is in the early lead. Pierce is from the Seneca Nation, he’s the first Native American to compete in the Olympics. Just behind the leader are three more Americans; Arthur Newton, Thomas Hicks, and Sam Mellor. Mellor was the winner of the Boston Marathon in 1902.

On the third lap, another American, Fred Lorz, takes the lead. When Lorz isn’t competing in marathons he’s usually working as a bricklayer.

Near the back of the pack of runners we have our first marathon casualty. American John Lordan, winner of the 1903 Boston Marathon is doubled over in pain and vomiting. As he walks off the track, he becomes our first DNF. We’re down to 31 racers now. 

The runners are nearing the end of the fifth stadium lap. American Thomas Hicks edges past Lorz and takes the lead as the runners exit the Francis Olympic Field. Hicks, you may be interested to know, works as a professional clown. You wouldn’t know it if you saw him now, he’s as serious as they come, focused on the race. 

Up ahead are a group of men on horseback, their job is to keep the track as clear as possible for the racers. Just behind them is a group of vehicles, containing journalists, officials, support crew, and doctors. It’s likely comforting for the runners to know that help is so close, but what isn’t comforting is the massive, steady cloud of dirt and dust being kicked up. Spectators are finding it difficult to distinguish who is who on the course. Participants are finding it difficult to breathe. 

Arthur Newton, who already won a bronze medal in the steeplechase yesterday is starting to make up some ground, and is currently in fifth place.  Thomas Hicks, has fallen back to seventh. A French-born slaughterhouse employee named Albert Corey, is making some headway and has moved into ninth. We have him listed on the American roster, but it seems Mr. Corey, a French immigrant, arrived at the Olympic games without his correct documents. If he medals, I suspect there will be some arguments down the road regarding which country the medal belongs to. 

Between the heat and the dust, runners should have access to plenty of water. Chief Organizer James Sullivan is making that difficult for them however. Sullivan has labeled two water sources along the route. One is located at a water tower six miles in. The other is right around the halfway mark. After the 12 mile mark, runners will be on their own.

It would appear that Felix Carvajal has stopped to ask a spectator for food. The man hasn’t eaten in 40 hours, he has to be hungry. The spectator is holding two peaches and Carvajal is begging the man for them. The man declines to hand over his peaches but Carvajal reaches out, takes them anyway, and is now running away. 

We’re excited to have the first two black Africans competing in the Olympic games. These two gentlemen are Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani. Before becoming Olympic athletes representing South Africa, they were representing their country in an exhibit down the street at the World’s Fair. And before that, they both served as long-distance message runners during the Boer War. It appears that neither man has race experience, and both Taunyane and Mashiani have decided to forgo shoes. 

American Arthur Newton now holds the lead at the six mile mark. It’s a quarter of the way through and Sam Mellor is close behind on a particularly dusty portion of the route. Behind them, vying for third, are Fred Lorz and Félix Carvajal. The mailman would be doing better if he’d quit stopping to talk with all of the spectators. 

Lorz and Carvajal stay near each other as they approach the 10-mile marker. Lorz is beginning to experience painful muscle cramps and has slowed down considerably, now he has stopped completely and appears to be flagging down his coach who is picking up the cramping runner in his car. That should be it for Fred Lorz. 

Carvajal has now also stopped, but he just seems to be hungry again. There happens to be an apple orchard nearby so Carvajal enters the orchard and retrieves a handful of apples. From where we’re sitting, those apples appear to be rotten. We can now confirm that the apples are indeed rotten as Carvajal is doubled over in pain. Now it would seem that the mailman is laying down to take a nap.

We check in now on South African runner, Len Taunyane. He is quickly becoming a favorite to win this race as he makes up ground on the current leaders. (dogs barking).  That’s not good, Taunyane is now being chased way off course by a pack of wild dogs. That’s going to hurt his chances. 

We’re now at the halfway mark of the marathon. Americans Sam Mellor and Arthur Newton have switched places with Mellor now in the lead. Hicks is still hanging in there in third place. Mellor has long been the favorite to take home the gold. He’s podiumed three times in Boston over the last four years and he won the Pan American Exposition marathon in 1901. It was reportedly 104 degrees during that race and he’d been fine. 

We might have spoken too soon, now at the 14 mile marker, Sam Mellor has become disoriented. He seems to have taken a wrong turn. There is so much dust, these gentlemen aren’t sure which way to go. Mellor is waving the white flag and is officially dropping out. We’re down to 30 participants. 

Thomas Hicks has taken the lead with Arthur Newton trailing not too far behind. 

While still currently winning, Hicks, who passed the last water station almost three miles ago, looks absolutely dehydrated. He’s signaling to his trainers in a nearby car and begging for water. They are refusing to give him water but appear to be giving his shoulders a sponge bath instead.

Chief Organizer James Sullivan designed the 24.85-mile race as more of an experiment enabling him to test his own exercise science theories. He believed in the power of what he called “purposeful dehydration.”  He followed the theory that drinking and/or eating during exercise would do little more than upset your stomach. The beliefs of Sullivan seem to be spreading as Hicks’ trainers continue to deny him water. 

The sponge bath doesn’t seem to be helping, Hicks appears to be trying to stop and lay down for a bit. His trainers hop out of the car, force him to stand back up and appear to be coming up with a new plan. One of the men is running to the car now and grabbing a satchel. Let’s see what he pulls out of his bag of tricks. 

It looks like he is removing a bottle of strychnine, some eggs and a snifter of brandy. The other trainer is now vigorously mixing the contents together, separating out the egg yolk at least and now Hicks is holding his nose and drinking the concoction. Strychnine is commonly used in rat poison, but in small doses it can stimulate a human’s nervous system. This will go down as the first recorded instance of performance-enhancing drug use in the Olympics. 

Hicks is now back to running but appears to be hallucinating. 

We’re keeping a close eye now on American William Garcia who is in fourth place at the mile 19 marker. Garcia is a long distance runner out of San Francisco and is thrilled to be here. He’s done well up until now but appears to be slowing. Now it would seem that Garcia is coughing up blood. And now, he has passed out. After two hours of running through dust, the heat and dehydration has apparently almost killed him, and would have but here comes a makeshift ambulance which will take him to the hospital. He’ll likely need surgery for a dust-lined esophagus and a torn stomach lining. Poor guy. Still though, as we get close to the end of the marathon, we have 29 strong competitors. 

We’re about to pass the three hour mark which means Spyridon Louis’s time of 2:58:50 in 1896 and Michel Théato’s 1900 Olympic Marathon winning time of 2:59:45 will stay number one and two in the record books. 

But what’s this? Here comes Fred Lorz. This man should have been disqualified once he got in the back of his trainer’s car around mile nine. For the last 11 miles, Lorz has been sitting on the back of the car, waving to race fans as he continued along the route via automobile. The car now appears to be breaking down, Lorz is getting out of the car now and looks to be jogging towards the stadium and finish line.

Fans inside Francis Olympic Field roar in unison at the site of Fred Lorz who acknowledges the crowd as he crosses the finish line with a time of three hours and thirteen minutes. It’s 13 minutes slower than the last Olympics winning time and he did over half of it in a car. The crowd is showering Lorz with applause and here comes Alice Roosevelt to hand him his gold medal. She’s looking especially fetching this evening as she places a wreath upon his head. 

Now a few angry spectators are approaching the ceremony. They look upset and have every right to be. “Lorz cheated,” they shout.  Here come the race officials asking if it's true. “Yes, it is,” Lorz admits. “But I was just playing a joke.” All of the applause quickly turned into boos. 

As Lorz is being ushered away from the podium and a shot at Alice, we turn back to Thomas Hicks who is currently looking unwell and walking up a hill two miles from the stadium. He can win this race if only… Yes, here it comes, another dose of Strychnine chased down with a swig of brandy.  Like a robot with new batteries, Hicks is running once again. 

The crowd inside the stadium erupts again, but looks confused. Hicks is being physically carried by his two trainers. One on each side. Hicks is in the middle, lifted up off the ground but still shuffling his feet as if he’s running. Hicks and co. cross the finish line at an unimpressive 3 hours and 28 minutes. It will likely go down as the slowest winning marathon time in Olympic history… by 30-minutes. But still, we have our winner and America has another gold medal. 

He gives a passing nod to Alice Roosevelt, grabs his medal and promptly lays down on a stretcher. It will take four doctors, I’m sure, to keep him from dying. It looks like he lost eight pounds while running today. 

Six minutes later, at 3 hours and 34 minutes, here comes France’s Albert Corey. He’ll take the silver. Thirteen minutes behind him, we have American Arthur Newton securing the bronze medal.  

Now it's been a while and race officials look tired. They’ve decided to leave one guy behind to record places but they won’t bother keeping time anymore.  

It would seem The Mailman, Felix Carvajal’s recovery nap worked for him, here he comes earning himself 4th place. Finishers could be trickling in for hours so we will sign off for the night. Thank you for listening to this live broadcast from the games of the third olympiad, St. Louis.

In the end, runners from Greece came in 5th, 10th and 14th. David Kneeland, Harry Brawley and Sidney Hatch, all from the United States finished 6th, 7th and 8th. Len Taunyane came in 9th even though the dogs chased him a mile off course. His South American counterpart, Mashiani, finished 12th. Two more Americans finished 11th and 13th. 

And then, that was it. Forty people signed up to race in the 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis. Of the 32 that started the race, 18 of them were unable to finish for one reason or another.  

Out of all the 1904 participants, only American Sidney Hatch would take part in the 1908 London Games. He’d finish in the middle of the pack, again there. Thomas Hicks, your winner, never ran another marathon and like our South African friends, was never really heard from again. Albert Corey continued to run, winning at least one more big marathon. Arthur Newton won a total of three medals at the St. Louis games.  

Carvajal, the Cuban mailman, continued to travel for marathons. In 1905 he came back to St. Louis for the inaugural All-Western Marathon. He finished third. In 1906, the Cuban government paid for him to travel to Greece to take part in a marathon. Carvajal disappeared on his way and everyone presumed he was dead. Newspapers even ran his obituary. A few months later he appeared back in Havana and continued running races. 

For Fred Lorz, the man who spent more than half the race in a car, the AAU banned him from running professional races for life. He claimed it was nothing more than a practical joke and after apologizing publicly, the ban was reduced to six months. Lorz went on to win the 1905 Boston Marathon, without the aid of an automobile. 

James Sullivan became the head of the US Olympic Committee. He would continue to promote the idea of “purposeful dehydration”. Because of the disastrous marathon results which were mainly his fault, he announced that he was joining forces with other committee members in an effort to have the event removed from the Olympic games. Newspapers were calling it, “the man-killing event” and Sullivan himself was quoted as saying, “a 25-mile run...is asking too much of human endurance.”

It should be noted that aside from Sullivan being a known racist, he was also a misogynist. At the 1908 games he was able to keep women from competing in London. While that was a victory in his eyes, he was also forced to witness a black athlete, John Taylor, win a gold medal for the first time. 

As far as the 1904 Olympics are concerned, the botched marathon may be the most discussed. There were some other wonderful stories however. American gymnast George Eyser, won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood. Frank Kugler also saw success, winning four medals in freestyle wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war. He is the only competitor to win a medal in three different sports at the same Olympic games. 

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition also featured some memorable events. On June 5th, a bullfight scheduled for an arena just north of the fairgrounds was halted by Missouri’s governor due to anti-bullfighting laws. Spectators wanted their money back, but they didn’t get it, and then began throwing rocks through office windows. After that, they burned the arena to the ground.

Dr Pepper, waffle cones and Puffed Wheat cereal were first introduced to a national audience at the fair. X-ray and fax machines made their debut. Personal automobiles became a possibility as did infant incubators and airplanes.  The fair inspired the song "Meet Me in St. Louis". The fair and the song are a big part of the 1944 film of the same name. Some of the more notable attendees were Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, The Sundance Kid, Jack Daniel, Helen Keller and T.S. Elliot. 

The United States hasn’t hosted a World’s Fair since 1984. I think it's time.

Let me know what you think. Nathan@curator135.com Visit the website to see photos of the 1904 Olympic Marathon and some of its participants. Curator135.com  

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