I try to get clever with the titles for these blog posts, this one may just be a little over the top. But maybe it worked as an eyecatcher? Anyway, you're here now, so let's get on with it!
Unfortunately, as far as I know, Humboldt County hasn't had a bobsled team, but we have had a good number of sports stars come out of our region. I like to think that it's because there's so much room out here and clean air compared to other parts of the state, making it a great place to get out and get some fresh air (when the weather is nice!). Today, I'll be sharing some stories of locally, nationally, and internationally famous runners and sports races. Go ahead and curl up on the couch with a cozy blanket for some Cool Runnings(tories).
"Cinder-Elta" - The Story of Elta Cartwright
In the 1920s, women were not legally entitled to participate in sports teams at school, including universities (the famous Title IX made access to women’s sports a rights in the 1970s) as women’s participation in sports was thought to be unladylike. Men’s sports were plentiful, but it was usually due to perseverance or incredible successes that women’s sports were established. In the 1920s, a woman named Elta Cartwright helped to elevate the place of women’s running in Humboldt County and became the first woman to be on the United States Olympic track team.
Elta Cartwright was born in Eureka, CA on December 21, 1907. She graduated from Eureka High School in 1924 and moved on to Humboldt State Teacher’s College, as Humboldt State University was known as then, to train to be a teacher. She was known for her speed as a sprinter and, in an interview from the 1980s, mentioned that she had looked at going to school at Stanford, but didn’t because there weren’t adequate running facilities there for someone who wanted to train for the Olympics. Elta won her first national track meet in 1925, along with a 1926 national track meet in Philadelphia. Due to her rising star status, the 1927 national track meet was held at Eureka High School, Elta's home track. This track was made of cinder, earning Elta the nickname "Cinder-Elta".
Elta’s Coach, Laura Herrion, took racers from Humboldt State to New Jersey to try out for the Olympics in 1926, where she tied for the world record in the 100 meter dash, at 12.6 seconds and made the Olympic team. She was known by many at the time as the greatest woman athlete in America at the time.
The Olympics in 1928 were held in Amsterdam, and the team had to take a boat across the Atlantic to get there from the east coast. The boat offered little in terms of space for practice, but some running did take place on board during the 5 day voyage. Unfortunately, Elta was seasick and didn’t end up qualifying for the semi-finals. Elta’s coach, although she wasn’t allowed to attend, sent a bouquet of roses to Elta following the conclusion of the race with a note “as in defeat, so in victory.” The coach for the team, according to Elta, favored his own racers on the team and didn’t allow a recovered Elta to race in the relay team, which made it to the semi-finals against Canada.
When she returned to Eureka, Elta received a hero’s welcome, with a decorated train to pick her up and take her from San Francisco to Eureka, and a parade. She quit racing upon returning and became a teacher.
Elta, while she was still in school, taught for a time in Petrolia. In a recorded interview, Elta mentioned that one of her motivating forces for becoming not only a teacher but a great teacher was from a comment made by her supervisor, a Mr. Finnity, who said that her sisters were better teachers than she would ever be. She spent her career teaching and passed away in 2001.
Elta was inducted into the HSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1959, and was the first woman to be inducted.
The Redwood Empire Indian Marathon
 | The year was 1927. Highway 101 connecting the rural Northern California coast was completed about a year ago, and tourism to the area needed some encouragement. The Redwood Empire Association, made up of the chambers of commerce of towns along the 101 including San Francisco, Eureka, and Grant’s Pass were looking for a sensation to attract media attention to the area- and tourists. Thus the Redwood Indian Marathon was devised. It was a 480 mile run from San Francisco’s City Hall to Grant’s Pass, all along the 101. The Redwood Empire Association thought one additional component would attract extra attention- if the race was limited to Native American runners. This wasn’t an unusual publicity stunt, and demonstrations of Native Americans running long distance happened in the southwest around the turn of the century. Some Hopi runners were noted to have run 130 miles in 24 hours. The popularity of these runs for spectators was growing in 1926 and usually took place at fairs. A plan was devised to bring the publicity-generating run to the recently completed (but still partially dirt) Redwood Highway. |
From the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. this is an image of Native American men running at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. It includes a description: "Here we see Indians from the Sherman Institute at Riverside, with their ancestors' hardihood and endurance, running in the Los Angeles Coliseum. Will one of these Americans win in the Olympic? The Olympic marathon is about 26 miles, the distance of the original marathon of 490 B.C., when Philippides ran to Athens with news of the Greeks' victory over the Persians at Marathon, cried, "Joy, we win," and fell dead. Photo dated: February 25, 1927."
Marketing for the race leaned heavily on racial stereotypes about Native individuals – one advertisement for the race claimed that the race would be “Like a flash-back to the days when red braves sped overland afoot with messages from tribe to tribe will be the scene presented by these genuine tribesmen pressing on almost continuously for from ten to fifteen days to reach their goal.”
For the Redwood Indian Marathon, 11 individuals signed up, 4 were from the Karuk Tribe, and three of those were brothers: John, Gorhum and Marion Southard. Henry Thomas was the fourth Karuk tribe runner. Organizers wanted to make the men seem “authentically Indian” so they gave them running personas like “Mad Bull” and “Flying Cloud”. Three runners were brought in from the Zuni tribe in New Mexico and sponsored by different counties in California. Images of five of the runners are shown below:
The rules were simple- the runners had to make it from San Francisco to Grant’s Pass. Each could have a supply car, and could set their running and resting schedules. While they had the option of staying in hotels along the route, most chose to stay alongside the road. The main rule was that the runners had to stay on the Redwood Highway and could not catch a ride from motor vehicles.
Along the route, various pranks were pulled, with residents dressing up as runners and passing through towns hours before the actual runners did, causing whole towns to run out in the streets and cheer the “runner”, then being shocked and confused when the actual runners came into town. This happened at least twice, once in Geyserville and once in Arcata.
Since long distance communication was unavailable on the more remote parts of the route, the organizers decided that the communication could be done through smoke signals (in sticking with the stereotyped "Native American-esque" theme of the race). There were telegraph lines in towns along the route so those were more frequently used.
Petaluma Egg Basket. California State Library.
Along the road, towns gave the runners gifts of cash for being the first runner through the town, eggs (in the case of Petaluma, which was known for its egg production at the time), and prunes from Healdsburg.
It was a long race to say the least. After day 4 of running, it was a five-man race, as most runners had fallen far behind or dropped out due to exhaustion or injury (one was hit on the back with a camera tripod and later had to drop out from injury). John Southard and Henry Thomas were the frontrunners, but eventually Southard pulled ahead and completed the race in 7 days, 12 hours, and 34 minutes. Thomas came in second eight hours after Southard arrived in Grant’s Pass. The third and fourth place runners arrived the next day, and the 5th-7th place runners arrived sometime after 9 days, and their times were not recorded. Four runners dropped out of the race.
 Elta Cartwright shakes hands with "Flying Arrow", one of the racers during the 1928 Redwood Empire Indian Marathon. | The race was held again the following year, and Thomas won. A third race was in the works when the stock market crashed, dragging tourism down with it. In 1987, the race was run again by members of the Grant’s Pass High School and at the end of the race John Southard was waiting to congratulate them. |
Sources:
Elta Cartwright Articles
https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ca/elta-cartwright-1.html
https://hsujacks.com/honors/humboldt-state-athletics-hall-of-fame/elta-cartwright/5
Redwood Indian Marathon articles
https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/indian_redwood_marathon_redwood_empire_run_/#.XrM-PahKiUk
This article as a day-by day breakdown of the race, and is definitely worth a read!
https://ultrarunninghistory.com/redwood-indian-marathon/
https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ca/elta-cartwright-1.html
https://hsujacks.com/honors/humboldt-state-athletics-hall-of-fame/elta-cartwright/5
Redwood Indian Marathon articles
https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/indian_redwood_marathon_redwood_empire_run_/#.XrM-PahKiUk
This article as a day-by day breakdown of the race, and is definitely worth a read!
https://ultrarunninghistory.com/redwood-indian-marathon/
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