American History Tellers - The Fight for the First U.S. Olympics | A Tale of Two Cities | 1

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

In the late 1800s, European fascination with the culture of ancient Greece, and a growing interest in physical education and fitness, led to the idea of resurrecting the Olympic Games of antiquity. A French nobleman named Pierre de Coubertin took up the cause, and under his leadership, the first international Olympiad took place in Athens in 1896.Coubertin loved America, and wanted to bring his modern Games there. But finding an American city to host his sporting spectacle proved to be a competition in itself. Before the Games began, civic grudges and political backstabbing ignited a war between two rival cities, St. Louis and Chicago, over who would garner the glory of hosting the first U.S. Olympics.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's August 1904, around six in the evening. The sun is still high in the western sky over St. Louis Olympic Stadium. You're the finishing line judge for the marathon of the first Olympic Games ever held in the United States. And right now, you're on pins and needles, waiting for the race's final moments. In the stands around you, 10,000 spectators are waiting, too. It's the biggest crowd you've seen yet for these Olympic Games.

This 25-mile race is the Olympics' signature event, a triumph of physical endurance, made all the more remarkable by today's sweltering heat. Even now, in the early evening, it's still close to 90 degrees. Next to you, the assistant line judge checks his pocket watch. No, well, it should be any time now. The record is just under three hours. Yeah, two hours, 59 minutes, 48 seconds. But this heat has to have slowed them down. It's a miracle if any of those men cross the finish line. The assistant judge isn't wrong. The course selected for the marathon over steep hills, long, dusty country back roads would be tough in any conditions. It wouldn't surprise you if it takes another hour for the first runner to cross the finish line.

But you try to hide your concern. Yeah, no. We got the best amateur athletes in the world running this marathon. I'm sure the front runners will be here at any minute. And as if on cue, a lone man jogs into the stadium's entrance, right where the runners left over three hours ago. You squint to make out the number pinned to his shirt. Oh, that's Fred Lors. He's with the Milwaukee Athletic Club.

We're going to have an American winner. But something about Lors' sudden appearance strikes you as odd. If he's the frontrunner, there should be a car following him, carrying rules officials and members of the press. But he's alone and running fast. Oh, well, let's get into position. You and the assistant judge take your places on either side of the finish line just in time. Smiling and waving at the crowd, Lorz crosses, breaking the tape with his chest. The crowd erupts into cheers. You're just about to mark down his time in your scorebook when a voice booms out from behind you.

Don't bother recording that time. It's Director Sullivan, the man in charge of the games. He looks red-faced and out of breath, like he's been running too. What do you mean, sir? I mean it's a sham. Lorz is disqualified. He hitched a ride on the back of a truck. Over the noise of the cheering crowd, you wonder if maybe you've misheard him. I'm sorry, he hitched a ride? He cheated! Look at him, taking a victory lap.

I'm gonna kill him myself, I tell you. That man's making a mockery of my Olympics. Sullivan pushes his way past you and out onto the field. You and your assistant judge look at each other in stunned disbelief. This whole Olympics has been played with problems from day one, but this is the worst yet. Feeling defeated, you look up into the stands, at the spectators still celebrating this man's phony win in the terrible August heat. Right now, there's no way around it. The first American Olympic Games are turning into a disaster. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

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We'll put you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made. And we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. Today, the Olympics are an international sporting juggernaut. The most recent summer games held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 attracted an average of 27 million viewers a night. This summer's games, which are scheduled to begin in Tokyo this month, will feature 11,000 athletes competing in over 300 events and are expected to generate over $1 billion in advertising revenue. But the origins of today's Olympics are much less grand. The modern Olympics began in Europe at the end of the 19th century. Organizers sought to evoke the fabled athletic competitions of ancient Greece and showcase amateur sports on an international stage.

Competitions would bring athletes and spectators together from around the world and possibly even promote peace among nations. But the first American Olympics, held in 1904, began with political jockeying and controversy. The games would nearly fall apart before the first starting gun was even fired. Still, despite confusion and bickering on the sidelines, legends would be made on the field of competition. This is the first of a three-part series exploring the first Olympics in the United States. This is Episode 1, A Tale of Two Cities. In the 1800s, the United States and the countries of Western Europe took a renewed interest in ancient cultures. Greek architecture, art, and philosophy were popular discussion topics in both society drawing rooms and newspaper columns. Colleges and universities adopted theories of a classical education as a foundation to learning. And in the 1820s, modern Greece arrived on the

world stage with a fiery war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. Soon after, a young Greek newspaper publisher named Panayianos Tsoutsos called for the ancient Greek Olympic Games to be recreated. They would be real competitions with prizes and awards that would hearken back to classical sporting events from the age of Socrates. It took two decades for Soutsos' idea to gain traction. Along the way, he tempered his romantic notions of time-honored athletic competitions with more pragmatic economic objectives. For Soutsos, the Games would give his native country a chance to regain its place of prominence on the world stage. He wrote,

If Greece could re-establish the Olympic Games, the peoples of the world would respect us. Tsoutsos convinced a war hero and wealthy shipping magnate named Evangelos Zappas to put his considerable fortune behind the Greek Games. Together, they staged four Olympics between 1859 and 1889. They included ancient sports such as javelin, discus, and the stone throw. An early version even included a chariot race, although four of the six chariots crashed on the course. Around the same time, a small town called Much Wenlock in northwestern England also held a semi-annual version of the Games. Olympic societies began to form across the British Isles, and athletic clubs became fashionable physical fitness offshoots of gentlemen's clubs. All of this activity was inspiring for a young French

aristocrat looking to make his mark on the world. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was born into French nobility and took an early interest in education and history. He felt strongly that France's 1871 defeat in the Franco-Prussian War had mostly to do with French soldiers' lack of physical training, so he formed a philosophy that placed athletics at the forefront of the French educational system. In 1888, Coubertin founded an organization that advocated for compulsory physical education in French schools. He promoted exercises and fitness regimens taken from the English school system, as well as the German athletic clubs called Turnverein. He also began corresponding with William Penny Brooks,

the Englishman who developed the Wenlock Olympian Games. With Brooks' advice, he formulated his first idea of how to build an Olympic-style event around amateur athletics. In the 19th century, amateurs played in the majority of sporting events the average person might attend. But the term amateur wasn't always inclusive. In England, the Amateur Code served as a barrier to keep working-class people from participating in gentlemen's club sports. A rule known as the Mechanics Clause denied amateur status to anyone who was employed as a mechanic, artisan, or manual laborer. Coubertin wanted his Olympics to be more universal. He also wanted to test out his ideas in the United States, which had its own network of athletics clubs and competitions. Coubertin was eager to see

the American sporting scene with his own eyes. So in 1893, he boarded a transatlantic steamship and set out for America. Imagine it's Chicago, 1893. You're in the small gym you own just south of the river, sweeping the floor and watching the young men work the punching bags. Your gym is on a rough street in an even rougher neighborhood. Outside, drunks stagger around at all hours of the day, and prostitutes clack by in heels. But in here, you've provided a sanctuary for young men

looking to better themselves through sports and fitness. There are rings, ropes, and pommel horses for gymnastics, You provided a sanctuary for young men looking to better themselves through sports and fitness. There are rings, ropes, and pommel horses for gymnastics, free weights, and straw mats. There's a boxing ring on an elevated platform, and even a water tank where swimmers can practice holding their breath. A group of four well-dressed men enter from the street. You've been expecting them, and give them your heartiest welcome. Gentlemen, we're honored to have such distinguished visitors, and from such a great distance, too.

Please, come in. The French Baron Coubertin is at the head of the group. He's young and vigorous-looking, with a long, thick mustache that covers a good portion of his face. You need to make a good impression on him. Your gym is running short on funds, and you're hoping that this fancy Frenchman, with all his talk of bringing something called the Olympic Games to Chicago, can help drum up interest in athletics. His eyes dart around the room, taking in all the equipment and the young

athletes who continue with their training routines. He smiles. Oh, this is a truly wonderful facility you have. I'm glad you like it. You'll find no high society here, Baron. We have carpenters, machinists, bricklayers. Chicago has produced some of the country's greatest athletes, and I've been lucky to train them here. As you show them around, the Baron tells you about his idea for a grand international sporting competition. Imagine a fully international event. Amateurs from the whole world can compete against each other. Language and distance will be no barriers. The concept is something I call Olympism.

Young men bound together through sport. You nod appreciatively. It would certainly go a long way towards building bridges between different countries. Exactly. I couldn't have put it better myself. These boys have gone on to compete for the Chicago and Milwaukee athletic clubs. One of them even got as far as the Knickerbocker in New York. But these Olympics of yours, if they took off, it could change the lives of some of these athletes. At this, the Baron's mustache turns into a wide, almost boyish smile. Exactly. Changing lives is what Olympism is all about. Sir, I find talking to you very agreeable. Can we be assured of your support for an Olympic

program? Perhaps I can include you on our committee notices list. You nod enthusiastically. You've been trying for years to get the city to do more to promote its amateur athletics. Maybe the Barron's Olympics will be the kind of boost a struggling gym like yours needs. Maybe if some of the boys you train can win medals in boxing or gymnastics, might even make you famous. In 1893, Coubertin went on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. He visited the World's Fair in Chicago and met with athletic-minded public officials in several American cities.

He discovered an athletic club system that, unlike England's, was less rigidly based on social class. He witnessed young men pursuing their passions in the hours before or after work, sweating in gyms or practicing in open fields. Coubertin discovered the same passion for athletics in America that he'd seen in Germany and England. He admired the athletic education system that was growing through collegiate sports and programs like the YMCA. But it was America's size he most admired. If Coubertin was going to grow his Olympic enterprise,

capturing the attention of the United States and its 60 million residents would be the fastest way to do it. Unfortunately, Coubertin also learned that Americans were strongly isolationist. While they were receptive to his idea of an Olympics, they were concerned primarily with sports competitions in their local communities. Few had even heard of the recent Olympics that had taken place in Europe. So by the end of his trip, he felt that America was not yet ready to host its own Olympics. Undaunted, Coubertin sailed back to France. He would begin building his Olympic empire in Europe first, and within a year, he assembled a committee and drafted a charter that defined the competition's

parameters. These new Olympics would happen every four years, with a different host city each time. Only amateur athletes could compete, and no women competitors were allowed. For his Olympic committee's membership, Coubertin reached out to aristocrats, generals, university professors, and other social luminaries. The Games themselves would be egalitarian, but the men running them would be wealthy and well-connected. In 1894, the modern, reinvented Olympic Games were introduced to the public at a conference at the Sorbonne in Paris. Some 2,000 people attended over several days, including athletic societies from 12 different countries. Delegates voted unanimously that the inaugural Games would take

place two years later in Greece. The president of the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, would change every four years depending on the host country. But the committee's secretary would always be Pierre de Coubertin. Everyone knew that in spirit these were Coubertin's games. Newspapers called the opening ceremonies of the inaugural 1896 Olympics the largest peaceful gathering of people since antiquity. Some 50,000 attendees arrived at the stadium in Athens, while 20,000 more took seats on the hillside above. The games

featured 43 events in nine different sports. Thirteen countries sent athletes. The U.S. fielded the largest Olympic team besides Greece and took home the majority of the medals. The games might have been even bigger if not for what the New York Times called a preposterous hike in hotel room costs. Still, overall, these Olympics were considered to be a huge success. The following Olympics, though, were anything but. This second time, Coubertin tied them to a larger event, the 1900 Paris World's Fair. Coubertin hoped his games could ride the coattails of the World's Fair, which drew an estimated 50 million visitors to Paris over its seven-month run.

But his plan backfired. Through a combination of organizational failures and power struggles, French officials cut Coubertin and the IOC out of the World's Fair entirely, leaving them scrambling to host some semblance of the grand competition they'd envisioned. The 1900 Games went on, but they were hopelessly overshadowed by the larger World's Fair. There were no opening or closing ceremonies, no medals or awards, and limited media coverage. Athletes felt their efforts were totally disregarded. An Australian sprinter complained that treating these events

as World's Championships is an insult. In the wake of this failure, Coubertin needed a successful follow-up. He gathered the IOC members and began debating where in the world the third Olympics should be held. London was floated as a possibility. But Coubertin had his sights set across the Atlantic, to the country he'd toured a decade earlier. This time, he hoped America might prove more receptive to his ideas. But in a country of over three million square miles, the question was where to have the games. Coubertin knew that for his games to succeed, picking the right city to host them would be critical. What he did not know was that with his first choice, he would be wading into the thick of a bitter civic rivalry that would threaten to turn his dream of the first U.S. Olympics

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either through their local athletic club or at the collegiate level. The only professionally organized team sport in the country in which players were paid was baseball. Boxers and jockeys were also paid, but overt gambling in both kept either from being considered a respectable sport. Those were tennis, lacrosse, golf, and perhaps the most popular sport of the era, track and field. The people who participated were seen as simply hobbyists. But Americans' perceptions of organized sports were beginning to shift. By 1900, every daily newspaper had started to devote at least one full page to the previous day's sporting results.

Amateur contests, once seen as uninteresting to all but the participants, were becoming a source of news and entertainment. Still, most Americans considered the Olympic Games a foreign affair, if they considered them at all. The United States had organized an Olympic committee to send American athletes to Europe in 1896 and 1900. The athletes had done well, winning more competitions both years than any other nation. But in the era before radios and television, delayed media reports and distant, unfamiliar settings kept Americans from becoming truly absorbed in the action. By 1901, American sports promoters wanted to change that. With the Olympics, they saw a potential tourism windfall for any host city and were eager to throw their hats in the ring. But not every city was equally enthusiastic.

Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin hoped that New York could be the first American city to host the Games. But he couldn't get any city officials to put forth a bid. But just upstate, the city of Buffalo expressed some interest, and Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago followed suit. Of these contenders, Chicago quickly moved into first place on Coubertin's list. America's second-largest city was centrally located in the middle of the country, easily reachable by rail from both coasts. Also, Coubertin still had fond memories of his visit to the city nearly a decade earlier.

A young Chicago attorney and real estate investor named Henry Ferber took it upon himself to lobby for a Chicago Olympics. Raised and educated in the city, Ferber's memberships in the Chicago Yacht Club and Athletic Club had less to do with his sporting inclinations and more to do with maintaining his social status among the city's elite. From his office at the Chicago Stock Exchange, Ferber tapped the president of the University of Chicago to head an Olympic committee and enlisted supporters to send flattering letters across the Atlantic to Coubertin. Ferber even met with Theodore Roosevelt, but couldn't manage to wrangle a public endorsement. By spring of 1901, Ferber had a promise from the University of Chicago

to provide training quarters and exhibition grounds. The city issued public bonds to build a lakeside stadium featuring an early version of a retractable roof. Sports equipment magnate Alfred J. Spalding joined the Chicago Olympic Committee and was considering a vast athletics good expo alongside the Games. Then, on May 19, in Paris, the International Olympic Committee gathered at a gentleman's social club and announced formally what everyone had assumed. Chicago would be the host city for the 1904 Olympic Games. In the Hyde Park neighborhood near the University of Chicago, thousands of students raised a huge bonfire on Marshall Field in celebration. Across the Atlantic,

Baron Coubertin himself couldn't have been more pleased. But there was a problem. Chicago wasn't the only city with ambition. 300 miles south, the city of St. Louis was gearing up for a massive civic event of its own, one that would soon challenge the choice of Chicago as the Olympic host. In 1901, St. Louis was at a crossroads. What had once been a rough-and-tumble center of fur trading on the banks of the Mississippi River was now the fourth largest city in the United States. But trade on the Mississippi had slowed,

and the city was losing ground economically to Chicago, which had emerged as the nation's largest railway hub. Soon, the city rivalry had matured into a one-way affair. Chicagoans looked happily into the future as their city grew by leaps and bounds, while residents of St. Louis bitterly looked to Chicago as a rapidly modernizing city that was eclipsing theirs. St. Louis wanted to prove it was still a powerful and culturally relevant place, and no one advocated for the city more loudly than a man named David Francis. Just over 50 years old, he was big, brash, and beloved in his hometown. He had been mayor of

St. Louis, then governor of Missouri, and the river city looked upon him with affection. In 1893, Francis was furious when he lost his bid for the World's Fair to Chicago. Called the Columbian Exposition, the fair was a huge success for Chicago, and the loss of that opportunity had made Francis and other St. Louis city fathers hungrier than ever to have a World's Fair of their own. In the summer of 1900, that opportunity arrived. Thanks to Francis's intense lobbying, Congress finally approved a federal appropriation of $5 million for St. Louis to host the next World's Fair, scheduled for 1903. Officially called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the fair would celebrate the

centennial of the 1803 acquisition of French territory by the United States. Attendance was expected to be in the millions. The World's Fair would be a defining event for St. Louis. It could generate enormous tourism income for the city and state and international publicity. And it was David Francis who had helped achieve it. But Francis was rankled by the loss of the Olympic Games. He wanted a clean sweep. If St. Louis could handle a World's Fair in 1903, it could certainly handle an Olympics in 1904. For Francis, the one-two punch was irresistible.

Especially if the blows landed on his biggest rival, Chicago. Imagine it's May, 1902. You're a St. Louis banker and a member of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, the organization that controls the World's Fair. You've come to Forest Park to meet with the company's president, David Francis, and see how construction of the fairgrounds is coming along. You also want to see how Francis himself is doing. Lately, the stress of the fair's looming deadlines has been getting to him. You find Francis standing next to a massive, half-built pavilion that will be the Palace

of Agriculture. He gestures grandly as you approach. Take a look at this. Doesn't everything look fantastic? Right now, the palace looks like a monument to lumber and scaffolding. But you nod your head in agreement. Forest Park couldn't be a better site in terms of scale and size. Francis turns his gaze to the six other palaces in the distance,

also in various states of completion. Tell you, it makes me very satisfied to stand here, think about the hundreds of thousands of people that will finally see what I'm seeing in my mind's eye. Now, if you don't mind me saying so, you seem much more cheerful than the last time we spoke. I am cheerful, and I'll tell you why. The fair is not going to be ready in time. I'm sorry, what?

I don't understand. That's terrible news. Why are you happy? But Francis ignores your question. See these seven palaces? We're going to need five more in a year. It's not a question of money anymore. It's a question of time. And we don't have enough.

So I'm going to propose to Congress that we extend by a year. David, we can't extend. This is supposed to be a centennial celebration. The Louisiana Purchase was in 1803. It wasn't in 1804. Chicago pushed their World's Fair back a year. It's practically a tradition. Besides, you're not seeing the silver lining to a post-Pollman. If we can host the World's Fair in 1904, we can host the Olympics that same year, too.

Just steal them from Chicago? Just like that? They're not going to give up the game so easily. They won't have a choice. I've already spoken to the Amateur Athletic Union. They've agreed to organize the fair sporting events. Give us all the top athletes. Chicago's Olympics won't be able to compete. Suddenly, you're starting to see what he's getting at. So your proposal to Chicago and the International Olympic Committee will be, move the games here or we'll steal your thunder.

That's exactly it. Think of the World's Fair as a magnet, drawing everything in. Athletes, fans, press. It will be in everyone's best interest to move the Olympics here. What about Congress? What will they think of postponing? Well, you need to leave that to me. I got us the World's Fair and I can get us a one-year extension too. They'll forgive me the small transgression of a missed deadline. It can be a far greater crime if this isn't the greatest failure the world has ever seen. You turn and look back at the half-finished palaces stretching out in the distance. David Francis is on to something, certainly. An extension is within the realm of possibility. But pulling the rug right out underneath Chicago's Olympics?

That's going to take some convincing and some luck. On the surface, David Francis' reasons for pushing the World's Fair back one year were based on necessity. The city was low on funds, and construction of the fairgrounds was taking longer than expected. But Francis also knew that the year's delay threw an enormous wrench in Chicago's Olympic plans. Francis had worked hard for his city's Olympic bid. He sent emissaries across the Atlantic bearing hand-delivered letters. His European connections lobbied the International Olympic Committee on his behalf. Francis even went to Europe himself, drumming up publicity for the World's Fair while privately pushing to get the Olympic location switched. So even after Chicago was officially named the host city for the 1904

Olympics, Francis was determined not to give up without a fight. After postponing the World's Fair, Francis moved quickly to ensure that the fair's athletic competitions would be run by the Amateur Athletic Union, at the time the largest organized sporting body in the United States. Under the AAU, the fair would host championships for every amateur sport, regardless of whether the Olympics were there or not. Through Francis's clever maneuvers, the center of the sporting world was shifting from Chicago to St. Louis. Back in Chicago, Henry Ferber was furious. The AAU championships and the World's Fair were simply too big of a draw, and he feared they would drown out the much smaller Olympic Games. Ferber desperately appealed to Coubertin and the World's Fair were simply too big of a draw, and he feared they would drown out the much smaller Olympic Games. Ferber desperately appealed to Coubertin and the International

Olympic Committee for help. But in Paris, the Olympic founder had suddenly gone silent. Letters and telegrams to Coubertin's home went unanswered. It looked like it would be left to the Americans to resolve this crisis on their own. But as the bickering between Chicago and St. Louis intensified, the fate of the third Olympic Games would become its own kind of sporting event, a ruthless game in which both sides would do whatever it took to win.

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Olympic Committee and its head, Pierre de Coubertin, made an announcement. And that was the problem. Coubertin, who had once so aggressively courted American public opinion in favor of the Olympics, suddenly refused to make any announcement at all. Letters to France from both Ferber and Francis went unanswered, leaving the future of the Games in limbo. Meanwhile, James Sullivan, the head of the amateur athletic union, had cast his lot with St. Louis. He'd agreed to have the AAU host a series of athletic events as part of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, regardless of whether the Olympics moved there or not.

And his organization, the AAU, was the most powerful sporting body in the United States. Founded in the late 1880s, it regulated a vast network of athletic clubs and their individual sports in cities across the eastern and midwestern U.S. From track and field events to lacrosse, tennis, and boxing, the athletic union controlled it all. If a championship victory by a team or athlete didn't have the AAU's seal of approval, then the victory might as well have never have happened. And at the AAU, James Sullivan called the shots. Muscular and domineering, Sullivan had been a track and field champion in the 1880s, then transitioned to sports publishing and promoting amateur competitions. He believed that amateurism gave sports a sheen of respectability.

Keeping money out of sports kept them safe, pure-hearted, and all-American. At least, that's what Sullivan said publicly. Privately, he knew better than anyone else that there was money to be made off amateur athletics. From ticket sales to concessions to sporting newspapers to the very equipment the athletes used, a fortune was waiting for the right person with the right angle. And he knew that the Olympics had the potential to be the most lucrative amateur athletic event of them all.

Imagine it's 1902 at a private club in Upper Manhattan. You work for the Spalding Sporting Goods Company, selling everything from catcher's mitts to tennis balls. Usually, you're visiting dusty college track courses or dank, sweaty gymnasiums, but this afternoon has been a welcome change of pace. A meeting with James Sullivan, head of the Amateur Athletic Union, has turned into a delightfully boozy lunch.

And now, as the third round of drinks arrives, Sullivan leans forward to deliver his unvarnished opinion of the upcoming Olympic Games. This whole site selection business has been a disaster. I expected more from the Olympic Committee. Amateur athletics doesn't mean amateur organizing. Sullivan's always been a little too sure of himself for your taste, but he's arguably the most powerful man in all of American sports, so it's your job to suck up to him. And you have to admit, this third cocktail is helping take the

edge off his abrasive personality. I'm not sure I understand why you care, Mr. Sullivan. Aren't you organizing your own games in St. Louis without the Olympics? Yeah, of course. America doesn't need the Olympics, but it's the principle. An embarrassment to any amateur athletic event is an embarrassment to us all. And that damn Frenchman is an embarrassment. You haven't made any secret about your dislike for Baron Coubertin. Baron Coubertin. Well, what's to like? The man can't even answer a piece of correspondence. But he's on to something. I'm not sure he even understands it himself, the potential of what he's doing.

But I do. Sullivan takes a long slurp of his drink. You can tell the booze is loosening his tongue. So you decide to probe him a little. Huh. Yeah? And what do you understand exactly? What does the Baron not get? That amateur athletics is a business. It's a big business, and it's getting bigger every day. The best part of it is, the athletes come cheap.

The minute athletes turn professional is the minute people like the Baron and me start losing money. Oh, so you do still want the Olympics to come to St. Louis. I imagine if you can merge them with your AAU competitions, you'd make an even bigger profit from it. Sullivan leans forward like he's letting you in on a secret. Oh, I could do more than profit from it. I could run the Olympics myself. The crash of a window shattering startles everyone. You look around and see a baseball bouncing across the carpet comes to rest near your table. A group of kids laugh and squeal outside and run off into the distance.

Sullivan bursts out laughing. Ha ha! Oh, you gotta be kidding me. He reaches down to pick up the ball. The two of you inspect the back and red seams, the name printed across the top. Oh, look, Spalding. It's one of yours. Now you're laughing too. Yeah, yeah, it is. That retails at $1.50. And I bet a dollar of that is pure profit. Am I right?

Now imagine how many of these you could sell at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and Olympic Games. You smile broadly. You're really glad you agreed to this lunch and sat through all of Sullivan's pontificating. If he's right about taking over the Olympics, he's about to become even more powerful. And with his help, you can sell a whole lot of Spalding baseballs and every other kind of ball in amateur sports. As the Chicago Olympics and the St. Louis World's Fair appeared to be on a collision course, James Sullivan focused on his new role as director of physical education for the fair and set about planning AAU-sponsored championships in every major sport.

Athletics would be a major component of the World's Fair, without any participation from the Olympics or Sullivan's nemesis, Coubertin. But privately, Sullivan let it be known that if the Olympic Games should happen to move to St. Louis, then so much the better. The odds appeared to be in Sullivan's favor. Nothing in the early 1900s was a bigger draw than a world's fair. Part science fair, part circus, world's fairs typically ran for months and drew millions of visitors. The Olympics, by comparison, were still an unproven commodity, unfamiliar to most of the American public. It was unlikely a Chicago Olympics could compete with its massive rival event to the South, especially if that event also featured athletic contests.

Still, Chicago Olympic organizers dug in their heels. Publicly, they announced they would press forward with the Games and even floated the idea of building a special Olympic train line that took fairgoers from St. Louis to Chicago and back again. But behind the scenes, Chicago's Olympic plans were in shambles. The city still didn't have enough money to build the stadiums and new facilities Henry Ferber's organizing committee had promised, let alone a new train line to St. Louis. The city had raised millions of dollars through donations, but was

still millions short of the funds they needed. It was against this backdrop, on a blustery November 1902 evening in Chicago, that the Chicago Olympic Committee held a banquet for visiting St. Louis World's Fair officials. David Francis himself, head of the St. Louis World's Fair, had requested it. Henry Ferber, his rival in Chicago, did the polite thing and agreed to host it. Ferber sat unhappily at a table near the front and listened to speeches from various World's Fair exposition leaders. When it was Francis's turn to speak, he ambushed the Chicago Olympic Committee with a brazen proposal. Standing at the podium, Francis declared that because St. Louis already had an eight-month program of scheduled sporting

events for the fair, he was confident that Chicago would cooperate in transferring the Olympics to St. Louis immediately. Set in a room full of reporters, the exposition director's words felt less like a suggestion and more like a demand. The next day, Chicago headlines screamed the news, City may lose Olympic Games to St. Louis exposition. Back in France, Coubertin was acutely aware that he was losing control of the American Games. But a combination of personal pride and fear of making a public misstep froze him and prevented him from intervening. He had no great love for St. Louis, which he once described as possessing no beauty nor originality. He didn't want to transfer the Olympics there any more than

Ferber did. But Coubertin knew that an Olympics in Chicago at the same time as the World's Fair in St. Louis would be a poorly attended embarrassment, and he couldn't afford to have two disastrous Olympics in a row. So finally, in February 1903, a curt two-word cablegram from Coubertin arrived at Ferber's opulent Chicago office. It read, Transfer Accepted. Ferber's defeated reply was almost equally terse. Instructions just received. We'll transfer accordingly. It was official. Chicago had lost the Olympics to St. Louis. In the war between the bitter civic rivals, David Francis was on the winning side. He was jubilant. Not only would the first American Games happen in Missouri, but they would happen on the biggest stage, the 1904 World's Fair. For the city's politicians and business leaders,

this was the most desirable outcome possible. And it was a victory for someone else, too. The amateur athletic union's James Sullivan. With the Olympic Games now in St. Louis, he was one step closer to wresting control of them away from Coubertin, who, with his two-word cable, had seemingly washed his hands of the matter. In all the bickering over who would host the Games, there was one unexpected bright spot. The press had enthusiastically covered every step of the controversy, enthralling readers and providing more free advertising than Olympics organizers could ever have hoped for. Now, in 1904, as the St. Louis Olympics finally approached, Americans were hopeful that the Games themselves would be just as dramatic as the battle over hosting them.

But after all the years of wrangling, it remained to be seen whether the city of St. Louis was really prepared to host both a World's Fair and the first U.S. Olympics. Everyone was curious to know whether the games themselves could live up to the hype. On the next episode of American History Tellers, as the first U.S. Olympic Games begin, athletes must fight to overcome scorching weather, a war that disrupts international travel, and James Sullivan's controversial ideas about how to showcase foreign cultures. From Wondery, this is episode one of the fight for the first U.S. Olympics for American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you'd like to learn more about the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, we recommend America's First Olympics by George R. Matthews. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by George Ducker, edited by Dorian Marina. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marsha Louie for Wondery. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up,

I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast Series Essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost

Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time, only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself.