The Trans-Continental Foot Race

Oh gosh, I feel like there are so many things I want to make a post about, only I haven't had any darn time for it! I've been writing up a storm (well, that may be an overstatement) and I've been reading a lot of fascinating stories about Route 66 too. My absolute favorite story, one that I've been dying to share here, is of the Trans-Continential foot race (or the "Bunion Derby"), a scheme cooked up by the guys trying to promote use of the newly-formed highway. It was a coast-to-coast marathon that offered a $25,000 grand prize to the first competitor to run from California all the way to New York, if you can believe it, and took place in 1928. Over 200 men entered the competition, even though the price to participate (between the entrance fee & the money needed for a one-way ticket home from NY) was an incredible $125!



At the starting line there were men wearing everything from work boots to moccasins, and a few that even went barefoot. Runners came from all over the world to participate; some where professionals, and others had no experience at all. Over the course of 84 consecutive days, the contestants found themselves running anywhere from 30 to 70 miles per day, through wind, rain, heat, and humidity. The race was poorly ran by a man named C.C. Pyle who only cared about making a profit, so the runners suffered for it: they were given awful food by a cook who was fired partway through, and they had to sleep in everything from tents to chicken coops. Everyday more men dropped out out the race; only 55 crossed the finish line.

I suppose the most important person in this story is Mr. Andy Payne, an Oklahoma-born farm boy with Cherokee ancestry who won the race at 20 years-old. He wasn't a professional runner, but entered the race because he was broke and unemployed, and "thought he could do it."

Andy Payne

At the finish line, Andy said he owed his success to cornbread. (Eat more cornbread, kids!) Once he collected his prize money (which was hard to do, since Pyle was hard-pressed to give it up), Andy went back to Oklahoma and married his sweetheart, Vivian--who was his old high school teacher, haha! (She was only one year older than him.)

I had so much fun reading about this fascinating and sometimes wacky event that I was actually a bit annoyed that I had never heard about it before! This is the kind of thing that could have spiced up a high school history lesson, just due to the sheer audacity of it. I also can't believe a film hasn't been made about it yet, which gives me an idea...

Oh, and I have to tell you about one more runner: "Wildfire" Thompson from Arkansas, who ran in red flannel underwear and wouldn't change out of it even though it made him look "more like a hobo than an athlete." During the last few laps he ran backwards for a while as a show for the crowd, and then he hung out for weeks after the race was over, just jogging around Madison Square Garden. When asked what he was doing, he said, "When all the misery's gone, you feel kind of lonesome and lost." Aw.

Read more about the race here & here & in Route 66: The Mother Road by Michael Wallis.