Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch

The connection between the topic of this message and my work is tenuous to say the least, but it caught my eye. Readers may find it to be informative. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, along with some friends, made a trip through the western states in the late 1940s. One of his stops was Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch. I thought little more about that until I read that the Craighead twins also stopped there on their way to catch a ship to Indian for their famous trip to visit their friend, Bapa, who was an Indian prince. They documented their stop at the “ranch” in Life with an Indian Prince, their account of the trip. My friend may have shared some knowledge about this attraction with the twins before their trip because they had confined their previous travel to places where wildlife could be studied. This time they studied a different kind of wildlife.

No, the “ranch” was not in Nevada. It was an attraction with the Golden Gate International Exposition that was held in 1939 and 1940 at Treasure Island in San Francisco. This event was also known as the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. Rather than being located on the Great Plains or some grassy meadow, Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch was housed in a nightspot known as The Music Box. The Music Box was in the Treasure Island Amusement Zone, the place where “flesh” shows were found. The area was also known as the “Gayway.” But that wasn’t where it always was.

In 1936, Sally advertised across Texas for a few attractive young girls to work at her NUDE RANCH in Fort Worth, Texas. The bold-faced type surely eliminated any confusion that potential applicants may have had about what the work entailed at this Depression-era enterprise. Her requirements were also clear: “Can be any height. Perfect figures necessary. Highest salaries paid.”

For those interested in knowing more, follow this link: http://www.bisonbill.com/sallyranch1.html

Bob Carroll

I post this blog with much sadness and gratefulness. Today’s mail brought the new issue of The Coffin Corner and opened it with great anticipation as I always do. This time an extra sheet was enclosed. Sadly, it announced the demise of Bob Carroll. Bob Carroll co-founded the Professional Football Researchers Association in 1979 and has worked tirelessly for it these past 30 years. As a favor to me, he drew the frontispiece for my recent book. A reproduction of his artwork follows. I will miss seeing his drawings in future issues. His obituary follows.

 Robert N. Carroll Jr.

North Huntingdon

Robert N. Carroll Jr. North Huntingdon Robert Nuehardt Carroll Jr., 73, of North Huntingdon, died Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009. He was born July 10, 1936, in Wheeling, W.Va., the son of the late Robert Nuehardt Carroll Sr. and the late Katherine Foran Carroll. He was a retired art and English teacher at McKeesport High School and was a writer of several books on sports. He is survived by his wife, Suzanne Sprowls Carroll; daughter, Katherine Aileen and her husband, Chris Potter, of Brownwood, Texas; son, Martin David “Hoss” and his wife, Cynthia Carroll, of North Huntingdon; brother, Charles H. Carroll, of Parkersburg, W.Va.; grandchildren, Maizy Lynn Carroll, Kyra Aileen Potter and Nicole Lynn Benevento; great-grandchildren, McKenna, Dominick and Caleb; sister-in-law, Aileen Beery, of Wheeling; and nieces and nephews. There is no visitation. Services are private. Arrangements are by the GILBERT FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORY INC., 6028 Smithfield St., Boston, Elizabeth Township. Memorial contributions may be made to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 2121 George Halas Drive, NW, Canton, Ohio, 44708.

Single-wing at Edwardsville High School

In June, I wrote about Edwardsville High School Head Football shifting over to the single-wing under new Head Coach Mark Bliss last year. A letter from my 8th grade English and home room teacher (whom all the boys had crushes on) caused me to think about Edwardsville football and how they are doing in this their second year with the single-wing.

A couple of searches located the Tigers’ 2009 schedule and performance to date. As members of the Southwestern Conference, they always face a tough schedule. This year the pre-season rankings had the East St. Louis Flyers at #1 in Class 6A (last year they were Class 7A state champs). USA Today ranked the Flyers at #10 in the country. The Belleville East Lancers were ranked #10 in Class 8A. Last year they made it to the second round of the playoffs and their coach thinks this is the best set of players he’s had at Belleville East. The Belleville West Maroons were ranked #8 in Class 8A. Yes, this is the Belleville West that has been in the news recently because one of its students was beaten by two others when he tried to find a seat on a school bus. I told you this was a tough conference.

The tigers started out their season with a 56-6 win over Roosevelt High of St. Louis, Missouri. Next they beat Chicago Corliss 46-0. Then conference play started. The Belleville East Lancers beat them 27-7 and last Friday they lost to East St. Louis 48-15. Now they have to win them all to have any hope of making the playoffs.

Some may blame the problems on the shift to the single-wing, but if one considers the number of points scored by the Belleville East and East St. Louis offenses, it is unlikely that the Tigers could have won regardless of what offense they were running. They need a defense.

Oklahoma, Land of Red People

I just came across an explanation of the origin of the name “Oklahoma:”

Oklahoma is a word that was made up by the Native American missionary Allen Wright. He combined two Choctaw words, “ukla” meaning person and “humá” meaning red to form the word that first appears in a 1866 Choctaw treaty. Oklahoma means “red person.”

Doing a little research, I then learned that Allen Wright was 7/8 Choctaw, originally from Mississippi, and was a Presbyterian minister who had been educated at Union Theological Seminary. After fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War, he was made principal chief in 1866 while away in Washington, where as one of the five delegates of the Choctaw Nation, he was negotiating a treaty to restore amicable relations with the United States.

During those negotiations, he referred to the Indian country as Oklahoma, meaning Territory of Red People. Oklahoma Territory wasn’t established by the treaty but the name stuck. Later, there would be an Oklahoma Territory and, later yet, the State of Oklahoma.

I also learned that decades earlier a nephew of the great Choctaw chief Pushmataha was named Oklahoma, but that was a happy coincidence. What we know as Oklahoma was not named after that man but was named by Rev. Allen Wright to mean land of red people. This is another example of Indians referring to themselves as red men long ago.

I verified the accuracy of this with Smithsonian Linguist Emeritus Ives Goddard and Bill Welge, Director of the Archives Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society. More information about this topic can be found in History and Civics of Oklahoma by L. J. Abbott, LL.B., M. A. and in “Chief Allen Wright” by John Bartlett Meserve in Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 19, No. 4, December 1941. Both documents are available on-line. They can be found at

http://books.google.com/books?id=pg8WP78lkmoC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=history+and+civics+of+

oklahoma+abbott&source=bl&ots=AY1OzEoSWg&sig=YUso_pD9MV7TyDCZ08vYdFXnpdg&hl=en&ei=

3mRDSuvRM4SONvK86Z8B&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 and

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v019/v019p314.html

1895 Carlisle-Army Game?

The other day, Frank Loney asked me to look at two 1895 letters written by W. G. Thompson, Carlisle Indian School Disciplinarian. It’s always a treat doing things like that because you never know what you will find. The letters were from July and October 1895. The first letter, the typed one, attempted to arrange a football game for the upcoming season. However, the party to whom the letter was addressed was not mentioned in the letter. That the second letter, the handwritten one, was written to a Chas. L. Poor in Annapolis, Md. This letter was written after the October 26, 1895 game with Navy and mentioned the previous year’s game. The first letter also mentioned the previous year’s game.

Carlisle first fielded a football team in 1893. Due to the late start, they played two November games against high schools. To the Disciplinarian fell many tasks and managing the football team was one of them, at least before Pop Warner arrived in 1899. The task of coaching the team fell to Vance McCormick in 1894 but Thompson was still responsible for arranging the games. Thompson arranged a complete schedule of games for 1894 for the Indians’ first real season. These letters document part of the process for arranging the 1895 schedule and managing the financial details of the game.

The only teams Carlisle played in both 1894 and 1895 were Navy, Bucknell and York YMCA. All the clues in the letters point to Navy; None point to Bucknell or York YMCA.

The next-to-last sentence was the prize in this package. It read, “I am holding decisions on dates with several universities that you and West Point may have preference of dates.” I interpret the “you” to mean the Naval Academy and West Point to be the Military Academy – Army. This means that Carlisle attempted to schedule Army a decade before the historic 1905 game. One need little imagination to think of reasons why Thompson was unsuccessful in scheduling a game with Army.

New Research Tool

Over the weekend, I stumbled across a new tool that could help those of us who research things long past. WolframAlpha.com is touted by some as the biggest challenger Google has faced. Others point out that it isn’t a search engine of the Google sort. WolframAlpha (W/A) is the brainchild of Steven Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research, the company that brings us Mathematica. Not surprisingly, W/A uses Mathematica as its engine “…to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.” W/A allows users to type in English language questions and receive answers reminiscent of the way computer interfaces in 1950s move computers.

Thinking this might be a useful tool for researching such things as the weather when Carlisle Indian School students arrived, I gave it a try. First, I threw it a softball by asking, “USA gross national product 1912.” W/A’s response was “(no data available).) Next, I tried “weather Carlisle, PA October 1879.” W/A returned “(no weather data available for October 1879).” Knowing that weather data is available for Philadelphia, I changed Carlisle to Philadelphia but got the same result. It seems that Wolfram hasn’t loaded all of the weather data that is available as of yet. Now for something simpler.

I entered “college football scoring record 1912” and confused W/A. It responded, “Wolfram\Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.” W/A seems to have some information for the NFL and major league baseball but is unaware of college sports. In the same box that tells us W/A is confused, they ask for experts. Perhaps this is an opportunity for Tex Noel, and David DeLasses.

Bezdek NOT Only Man to Manage MLB & Coach NFL Teams

Baseball-Reference.com attributes states the following about former manager Hugo Bezdek to The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia:
“In 1937, he was hired by the NFL’s Cleveland Rams to be their head coach. This made him the only man ever to coach a NFL team and manage a MLB team. Cleveland only went 1-13 under his reign.”

HogNation.com made a similar claim. RizzoSports.com echoes that statement. Brendan Macgranachan stated it differently when writing about Bezdek: “The story of the only man to manage in the Major Leagues and coach a professional football team” on SeamHeads.com</as does his claim http://seamheads.com/blog/2008/11/29/the-legend-of-hugo-bezdek/.

They are all wrong. Not only were they wrong when they wrote, it was wrong when Bezdek coached the Rams. It was even wrong when he managed the Pirates. In the very early 1900s, the Philadelphia major league baseball teams were competing fiercely with each other, especially for players. Professional football was beginning to develop a following and, in 1902, David Berry, a football promoter from Western Pennsylvania, founded the National Football League. He succeeded in convincing both Philadelphia baseball teams to sponsor teams. The third member of the league was from Pittsburgh and may have been sponsored by that city’s big league baseball franchise. The Phillies’ manager also managed the football team but did not coach it. However, Connie Mack, the Athletics’ manager did coach the NFL team becoming the first man to manage a major league baseball team and to coach an NFL team. Hugo Bezdek did not manage the Pirates until 1918 and the Rams until 1937. Connie Mack also made his star lefthander, Rube Waddell, play on the football team, thus likely becoming the first person to play both major league baseball and pro football.

The NFL disbanded after its World Series that was played over the New Year holiday in Madison Square Garden. However, none of the three NFL teams participated. The winning team was a Syracuse squad that featured Carlisle Indians Bemus and Hawley Pierce on one side of the line and the Warner brothers, Pop and Bill, on the other.

Rebirth of Chilocco Indian School

While conducting research on Lone Star Dietz in Kansas and Oklahoma, we drove past the long-closed Chilocco Indian School. Seeing that the gate was unlocked, we drove in the lane past cultivated fields, the school’s lake, and eventually into the center of the school’s campus. A caretaker noticed us wandering about and inquired about our presence there. She was puzzled because the gate was supposed to be locked as the grounds were not open to the public. She graciously allowed us to continue looking around.

The school closed its doors and, other than part of it being used by a drug rehabilitation program for some years, it has been fallow since 1980. Ivy has grown over some of the beautiful stone buildings. Decay would make renovating the campus an expensive undertaking, but well worth the investment. After bemoaning the sad state of this beautiful campus for some years, I came across something on the web that caught my eye.

Chilocco, “The Light On The Prairie,” has been deeded over to Council of Confederated Chilocco Tribes (CCCT) which consists of representatives from Kaw Nation, Otoe-Missouri Tribe, Pawnee Nation, Ponca Nation, and Tonkawa Tribe. The outer portions of the campus, consisting of large agricultural fields have been divided up among the five tribes for development . The 165 acres which comprise the central campus are held jointly. The Alumni Association, with a grant from Conoco-Phillips 66 Oil Company, is restoring the cemetery. The CCCT is raising money to be used to restore the buildings and create a museum. The Chilocco campus has been on the National Register of Historic Places for some time and is under consideration for nomination as a National Historic Landmark.

Some Carlisle students, such as Iva Miller (Jim Thorpe’s first wife), faculty and administrators also spent parts of their careers at Chilocco. I first became aware of Iva and Chilocco at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. That story is told in Keep A-goin’: the life of Lone Star Dietz.

Chilocco Indian School campus

Joshua Weeks played in the 1916 Rose Bowl

Brown threatened to score during the first half but failed. At halftime Washington State went into the clubhouse to dry off and change into dry uniforms but Brown didn’t bring extras to change into. They did, however, find a shed that contained some straw, so they coiled around it as best they could in an attempt to dry off. They weren’t in the best shape to play the second half.

In Weeks’ estimation, Brown was lucky to hold Washington State to a low score because they were like a junior team compared to the tougher WSC team. (Note that recent research uncovered writers’ opinions that WSC should have been selected as national champs in 1915.)

Back at Brown, Josh Weeks roomed with Fritz Pollard and operated a side business ironing men’s slacks to make money. Fritz played just one more year at Brown but Josh continued through the 1918 season when Walter Camp placed him on his All America second team at left end. Paul Robeson of Rutgers was named to that position on the first team.

After graduating from Brown, Josh Weeks attended medical school and eventually practiced in New Bedford, MA. There the high school coach asked him to attend the games in case his services were needed. Randy tells of a funny incident;

“My dad had attended New Bedford High and had played football for them. One game my dad was sitting on the bench, and New Bedford was getting creamed. A play came up where the other team stole the ball, and the runner was heading for a touchdown. My dad, dressed like a doctor…pants, jacket, white shirt with tie, and a hat on, jumped off the bench and ran after the kid until he finally tackled him. Needless to say the stadium roared with laughter and naturally the poor kid was given the touchdown.”

On a sadder note, Josh Weeks died on his way home from the reunion for the 40^th anniversary of the 1916 Rose Bowl. His memory lives on in his children and the stories he told them about his Rose Bowl experience. Next time another Brown player and a captain of industry attend the premier of “Jim Thorpe–All American.”

Brown's 1916 Rose Bowl team

Getting GPSed

This is off topic – way off topic – but please indulge my little rant. This week three of my brothers and I took our soon-to-be-95-year-old father on our annual tour. It used to be old car museums but has since expanded to also include tractors, airplanes, trains and historical sites. Getting useable directions to these places is always a challenge so two of my brothers used technology to address this problem – two different technologies.

 

One searched the Internet for maps with driving directions that are all-too-often questionable if not downright wrong. The other had a $300 GPS unit. Having heard others besides  him sing the praises of these magical units, I had him ride shotgun and get the driving directions to the new Air and Space Museum by Dulles airport near Washington, DC. It worked perfectly. It put us on the right roads and told us where to turn right up to pulling in the gate. That’s where the problems began. Fortunately the guard had dealt with people using GPS units before and quickly got us turned around and on our way to the main entrance. It seems that GPS units take you to the closest entrance, whether it is open to the public or not. Sending us to the back gate wasn’t the only thing it did wrong.

 

I started to say that we got GPSed but, after wandering around in Baltimore and Philadelphia, getting GiPSied may be more accurate. It had trouble finding the Schuylkill Expressway where it was lower than the streets that ran alongside it and seemed to be oblivious to one-way streets. For awhile we felt like Charlie in the Kingston Trio song, “The MTA.”