Creative History

  The founding charter of the Wenlock Olympian Games, written by a group of concerned citizens who wished, above all else, to improve their small town’s physical and moral health stated that the Games were established for, “the promotion of the moral, physical and the intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the town and neighborhood of Wenlock and especially of the working classes, by the encouragement of outdoor recreation and by the award of prizes annually at public meetings for skill in Athletic exercise and proficiency in intellectual and industrial attainments.”   The founding charter of the Wenlock Olympian games was authored by members of a group that called themselves the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society (WARS) in February of 1850 and its main aim was to establish something, in a true Victorian Era caste-system way of thinking that they called “The Olympian Class”.  Though, the idea of creating a so-called Olympian Class of citizens to us today ...

          August 30, 1904. At the rather odd time of 3:03 pm, the president of the 1904 World’s Fair raises his right arm straight into the air and fires the starter’s pistol.  The runners take off choking and coughing amidst a cloud of acrid dust. This is the start of the marathon of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games--the third running of the modern day Olympiad and the first ever held in the United States of America. On the day of the marathon temperatures soar into the upper 90’s and the high humidity makes the air feel more subtropical than midwestern. There are a few experienced and finely conditioned marathoners running that day, but not very many.  Though over thirty athletes from half a dozen nations participate in the marathon of the third modern Olympiad most of them are downright amateurs without any form of training or past experience.   In 1904 there were neither any qualifying events nor any physical or personal ...