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By Davy Crockett
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Frank Hart, at age 22, broke through racial barriers with his fourth-place finish in the 5th Astley Belt Race in Madison Square Garden, held in September 1879. Despite being black, Hart became a local hero in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. He had proven himself worthy of praise, competing on the grandest sporting stage in the world.
The ultrarunning/pedestrian promoters, backers, and bookmakers had allowed for diversity in this most popular spectator sport in America of that time. But was an American public ready to accept a black champion, just 15 years since the end of the bloody Civil War, with racial bigotry still prevalent in nearly all aspects of society? Hart, an immigrant from Haiti (see Part 1), had not grown up in slavery, and had the determination to reach the highest level of the sport in 1880, if he would be allowed.
In 1882 it was declared, “The six-day walking matches are the sickest swindles gamblers have yet invented for defrauding a virtuous public.” Well, many of both the public and the running participants were not the most virtuous people on the planet at that time, contributing to the wild strange stories that continually occurred related to the sport of ultrarunning/pedestrianism.
This book has been in the works for multiple years. The author scoured through thousands of Grand Canyon newspaper articles and documents. Included are many fun stories, the airplane that landed near Indian Garden, the man who rode his bike rim-to-rim with permission by the Park. The group of bikers who tried to ride rim-to-rim during a government shutdown. The story of Theodore Roosevelt crossing to hunt mountain lions on the North Rim (hundreds roamed the rim). The original trail that required 94 creek-crossings. The original “Devil’s Corkscrew” section that terrified early descenders, with directions so you can try it too.
On a summer morning in 1883 in midtown Manhattan, New York City, a young boy ran down 34th Street, getting the attention of a policeman. He cried out, “A man has killed some folks.” Officer John Hughes ran with the boy to a new saloon that recently opened. There he saw a man, pale, and trembling. He found out that the man was George Noremac, one of the most famous ultrarunners/pedestrians in the country.
Dan Brannen (1953-) of Morristown, New Jersey, has made a lifetime contribution to ultrarunning and the running sport in general. His dedicated work, mostly from behind the scenes, helped to establish world and national ultrarunning championships. His efforts have affected thousands of ultrarunners in America and around the globe for decades. Dan was inducted into the American Ultrarunning Hall of Fame in 2022.
This biography also presents twenty-three years (1879-1902) of the amazing pedestrian era history as experienced by Hart when ultradistance running was the most popular spectator sport in the country. He competed in at least 110 ultras, including eleven in Madison Square Garden, where he set a world record, running 565 miles in six days in front of tens of thousands of spectators and wagerers. During his running career, he won the equivalent of $3.5 million in today’s value and lost it all.
Ultrarunners/Pedestrians of the late 1800s were a unique breed of determined and aggressive individuals who were in the sport primarily trying to cash in on the huge prize money potential and to get their names in the newspapers as “world champions.” They would gladly endure the torture of running hundreds of miles in a week for a perceived easy way to earn life-changing money. Such opportunities obviously attracted individuals that weren’t necessarily the most outstanding citizens and had run-ins with the law. But the law and others at times wanted to bring down the sport and the athletes, and thus confrontations occurred.