NORMAL - "We have now had our look at the most freakish sporting event of the season, or many seasons," noted The Pantagraph of May 3, 1928. | From Our Past page

The previous day, some 70 bedraggled and dazed runners reached downtown Normal, one by one or in ragged packs. They started that morning from Lincoln, 34.6 miles to the south, or about 8 miles farther than a full marathon. What made this event "freakish" was the fact that this was the 60th stage of a race that had started nearly two months earlier in Los Angeles and wouldn't wrap up for another 3 1/2 weeks in midtown Manhattan.

For these runners, reaching Normal represented a feat not of 34.6 miles, but rather a staggering (literally and figuratively) 2,265 miles-the cumulative distance from LA. Even more startling was the fact that they still had 1,157 miles to go to reach New York City!

The First Annual International Transcontinental Foot Race began March 4, 1928, with 199 runners. From L.A. they followed Route 66 eastward to Chicago at a pace of about 40 miles a day. Once in the Windy City, they continued to New York by various other byways and highways. Like the Tour de France, the race was held in stages, with participants running each day, though their overall time since the race began determined the final standings.

Race participants crossed mountain passes, braved the 95-to 100-degree heat of the Mojave Desert, and plodded through rain, hail and snow, all the while dodging automobiles, motorcycles and bicycles (some dozen runners were struck, though there were no fatalities). Living in tents and mumbling about not enough to eat, their ranks diminished with each passing week.

"A horse couldn't do what these runners are doing," noted a Pantagraph sports columnist several days after they'd passed through Normal. "A horse couldn't travel from 25 to 60 miles a day for three consecutive months."

The participants ranged from world-renowned runners like Olympian Juri Lossman of Estonia to amateurs like eventual winner Andrew Payne, a 20-year-old part Cherokee from Claremore, Okla.

The race was the brainchild of Charles C. Pyle, a former Champaign theater owner who became an outsized impresario of the "anything goes" Roaring Twenties. This was an era when endurance competitions - from dancing to coffee drinking-were wildly popular, and Pyle, the P.T. Barnum of sports, wanted in on the action.

Pyle famously served as agent for University of Illinois gridiron great Harold "Red" Grange, and their partnership helped legitimize football as a professional sport. "The Galloping Ghost," as Grange was nicknamed, helped promote the cross-country event by serving as a goodwill ambassador, race official and sideshow attraction.

Long stretches of Route 66 were dirt or gravel, and many of the runners were plagued with foot problems. The press began referring to C.C. "Corns and Calluses" Pyle and the race as the "Bunion Derby."

To pay for this epic undertaking, towns and cities ponied up cash for the right to become one of the stopovers (or "control stations") along the route. Bloomington city fathers balked at putting up the $400 demanded by "Cash and Carry" Pyle (as he was also called), so he moved the overnight station to Normal. At these communities, Pyle would sell programs while curious onlookers would flock to his carnival sideshow, which included a five-legged pig, hula girls and a mummified outlaw.

On May 2, 1928, Grange and world-class sprinter-turned Boston sportswriter Arthur Duffy met the runners at the downtown Normal finish line, checking them into the control station at North and Broadway streets. Three runners, including Johnny Salo of Passaic, N.J., crossed the line in a respectable 4 hours and 24 minutes. "They were a bronzed and weather-beaten outfit," reported The Pantagraph.

Overall race leader Peter Gavuzzi finished 16th - "well in the lurch." Less than a week later, the diminutive 22-year-old Italian-born Englishman bowed out with an ulcerated tooth. He had been on a liquid diet for more than a week and could no longer run through the pain and fatigue.

At 7 a.m. the following morning, the "bunioneers" left for the next control station in Dwight.

After 84 days and 3,422 miles, 55 runners reached the final finish line inside the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. It took first-place winner Andy Payne 573 hours, 4 minutes and 34 seconds to cross the country on foot. For his troubles he received $25,000 in prize money.