Jim Thorpe Museum readies for new home
by Kelley Chambers
The Journal Record May 7, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY – On Friday a 9-foot-tall statue of Jim Thorpe will take its place overlooking Lincoln Boulevard.

The statue will front the new home of the Jim Thorpe Museum and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame at 4040 N. Lincoln Blvd., a building constructed as an office building in the early 1960s that, coincidentally, has football-shaped columns.Thorpe, from Prague, has been called the most versatile athlete of all time. He played professional football and basketball and won two Olympic gold medals.

When the museum opens later this year it will be the first permanent home for a collection of sports memorabilia and mementos from Oklahoma’s most famous athletes.

The Jim Thorpe Association was founded in 1986 and was joined by a sports hall of fame in 1989. Lynne Draper, founder and CEO of the association, has compiled an expansive collection of photos and items from Thorpe’s career, as well as items that trace Oklahoma’s sports history.

Getting the building ready for the museum and conference center proved challenging for architecture firm Frankfurt Short Bruza.

Jim Bruza, executive vice president at FSB, remembered when the brick building was constructed in 1962 as the offices for an insurance company.

“It’s a nice piece of architecture,” he said.

When Bruza and his team began planning for the museum, they found a few surprises. The building was built before major building code changes in the late 1960s, which Bruza said had not been addressed. The FSB team also found asbestos in the building. The size of a proposed conference room was another challenge.

Initially plans called for a conference room with seating for 100 to be built in what was a courtyard on the west side of the building. But no caterers wanted to sign on for such a small space.

That plan was scrapped and the courtyard was incorporated into the building. The area will provide gallery space on the first floor. On the second floor the addition joined the north and south wings to create a conference room with a commercial kitchen and seating for 600.

Lowe Runkle, project architect and project manager for FSB, said little remains of the old interior.

“It’s essentially a brand-new building,” he said. “The only thing we kept was the base structure and the exterior walls.”

Some of the original brick columns peek through the modern exhibit space.

The 40,000-square-foot building has the second-floor conference space, about 15,000 square feet of exhibit space, a theater with seating for 20, a gift shop in the lobby, and office and storage space on the lower level. Oklahoma members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes have their own room in the museum with a stained-glass window honoring the group’s members and donors.

Construction on the $7 million project began in the summer of 2007.

Justin Lenhart, museum director, is working to put the collection in order and create exhibits to honor many Oklahoma athletes, not just the most recognizable names. There are 116 members.

“The goal is to cover not only the big hitters but everyone in the hall of fame,” Lenhart said. “This is the first time there will be a professional display.”

Two one-of-a-kind items in the collection are parchments that accompanied Thorpe’s Olympic medals. The medals were taken away because he had been paid as an athlete prior to the Olympics, but were restored decades after his death.

Draper said it will be nice to finally have a permanent home for the association and the hall of fame.

“This will be the envy of every (state) sports hall of fame in the country,” he said. “I’ve been to most of them and none of them compare.”

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