Route 66 in the News
Library Appreciates Route 66 Connections
2008-01-04 09:48:21
LINCOLN, Ill. - Richard Sumrall is always on the lookout for a good book. When he read the review of Geoff Williams' "C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race," and noticed reviewers had given it several stars, he decided to add the book to the collection at Lincoln Public Library.
Not until the new edition arrived did the book's strong Lincoln connection become clear.
According to a blurb on the book's dust jacket, the story is "the riveting narrative of an incredible foot race across America, the men brave or foolish enough to attempt it, and C.C. Pyle, the legendary sports promoter who masterminded the event."
"Sue Rehtmeyer, our technical services librarian, as part of her cataloguing duties, has to go through things," Sumrall said.
As Rehtmeyer scanned "The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-coast Run Across America," she found several pages about the race from Springfield to Lincoln and from Lincoln to Normal.
"We were really surprised," Sumrall said.
The race was run during an age of endurance fads, from dance marathons to flagpole sitting, and offered a grand prize of $25,000.
Pyle, who is described as both a "sports agent and a bit of a con man" designed the race from Los Angeles to New York City and sold it as a promotion for the new highway stretching across America, Highway 66.
The road was only two years old and wasn't completely finished until 1937, so part of the race was run on unpaved portions of the highway.
Intrigued that the race, which was dubbed the "Bunion Derby," had come through Lincoln, Sumrall checked for accounts of the event on microfilm.
"Every day The Courier covered it," he said. "They arrived on April 28."
On the previous day, The Evening Courier's top headline shouted, "Runners Arrive Here Tomorrow."
One of Pyle's claims to fame was that he officially signed football great Red Grange, then a young collegiate football player, as his first client, then made him a star.
The story said that Pyle and Grange arrived in Lincoln at noon that day "in their palatial Fageal cruising coach, 'America,'" to conference with prominent businessmen to end Tuesday's lap in Lincoln.
The runners made a 31-mile jaunt from Springfield. By that time, the field of 250 starters had been reduced to 71 runners.
A large canvas enclosure was set up as a finish line and an admission of 10 cents for children and 25 cents for adults was charged to view the runners after they crossed the line. Concession stands were also erected and portable radio station KGGM reported the results of the day's run.
Grange introduced each of the runners and several of them gave short talks.
"Peter Gavuzzi, who is leading the race in the matter of elapsed time, has never shaved since the start of the grind and resembles a House of David disciple," the story said.... "One of the largest crowds in the history of the city is expected to greet the runners as they arrive at the finish line from noon to midnight."
The 248 Tire Company at Sangamon and Clinton streets took out a large Courier advertisement that read, "Did you notice that Pyle's & Grange's motor coach in Lincoln today was equipped with Firestone Tires?"
One of the runners profiled in the book was Harry Abramowitz (who later changed his name to Abrams). The 21-year-old signed on for the race as a veteran speedwalker. An errand boy for a lithographer, Abramowitz pocketed the $10 a week his employer gave him for transportation and instead walked.
He discovered the sport of speedwalking, which he cultivated through the Young Men's Hebrew Association. After winning several races, he billed himself as "the Jewish champion."
Early in the Bunion Derby, Abramowitz gave up speed walking for running, a practice he continued into his 80s.
After completing the Bunion Derby in 1928, Abramowitz reversed his route and returned to California in 1929, finishing in the top 10.
Abramowitz returned to Lincoln in June 1990, when he served as grand marshal of the annual motor tour sponsored by the Route 66 Association of Illinois. He still held the record for being the youngest person to ever walk across the United States twice.
At that time, in an attempt to explain his unusual feat, Abramowitz told The Courier, "They had a depression here. There was nothing else to do."
Sumrall said the new book is just one of a number of resources the library offers about Route 66.
"We're trying to get as many books and travel guides as we can," he said, "but our vertical clipping file is fairly extensive and we're always pulling that for people."
The library also has a framed reproduction of a 1928 map with notations made by an Indiana man who picked it up when he hitchhiked the length of Route 66 in 1930.
~Nancy Rollings Saul, LincolnCourier.com
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