The remains of the famed athlete Jim Thorpe will remain in Jim Thorpe, Pa., after the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the tribe and Thorpe’s family asking to have his remains returned to his boyhood home in what is now Oklahoma.
The Sac and Fox Nation and two surviving sons of Thorpe said that the remains were taken by Thorpe’s widow during a sacred ceremony after Thorpe’s death in 1953. She later struck a deal with the Pennsylvania towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, which agreed to build a monument for Thorpe and rename the merged borough in his honor.