Lewis Tewanima - Anadarko, OK - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

The bust of Lewis Tewanima shows him in his track bib. His hair is short and he has the lean look of an athlete. The bronze bust sits atop a concrete pillar on the pathway at the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians. His plaque reads:

LEWIS TEWANIMA
HOPE OLYMPIAN
Circa 1880s – 1969
A Hope Tribal Antelope, he Re-
Ceived a Silver Medal in the
1912 Stockholm Olympics. He
Lived Most of his Life on Second
Mesa, Hope Reservation, Arizona.
He Won More Than 25 Track Re-
Cords During his School Years.
In 1967 he was Inducted Into the
Arizona Sports Hall of Fame
In 1974, a Race was Organized to
Honor Him on the Reservation.
Sculptor and Donor: Betty Butts

During his school years, Tewanima spent five years at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania where he watched famed Sac and Fox athlete Jim Thorpe play football. The Carlisle coach was Pop Warner who told 110-pound Tewanima that he was too small for the track team. Tewanima explained that all Hopis were fast runners. He proved himself and won a spot on the Olympic team. He came in ninth in the Marathon in London in 1908, and was a silver medalist in 1912 at Stockholm, a record that stood until 1964.

He lived on the Hopi reservation in Arizona and raised sheep. He said he once ran a 120-mile round trip to Winslow, Arizona, just to watch the trains, as a youth. At 80 years of age, he was still herding his sheep 20-30 miles a day. On January 18, 1969, returning home from a ceremony in the dark, he fell off a 70-foot cliff to his death.

[Biographical information from the Museum’s Self-Guiding Tour pamphlet.]

URL of the statue: Not listed

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