James Francis Thorpe and his twin brother Charles were born here on May 22, 1887, to Hiram and Charlotte Thorpe on Sac and Fox reservation land. Charles died in 1896. As an amateur at the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Indian school, Jim excelled in track, football, and baseball and won two gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. As a professional, he played Major League Baseball from 1913 to 1919 and football from 1915 to 1929, became the first president of the National Football League, and was inducted into the professional football Hall of Fame, Oklahoma Hall of Fame, track and field Hall of Fame, and National Indian Hall of Fame. The Associated Press voted Jim Thorpe America's greatest all-around athlete and the greatest football player of the first half of the twentieth century. On May 18, 1996, the Olympic torch was carried from the Sac and Fox Nation through Prague to this birthplace to honor Thorpe's memory and contributions to the Olympics.