Crisp details pace ‘Amazing Foot Race'
Story recalls C.C. Pyle's coast-to-coast competition in 1928
Crisp details pace ‘Amazing Foot Race'

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Published: December 2, 2007

It was known as the "Bunion Derby.” "C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race” (Rodale, $25) by Geoff Williams is the true story of the 1928 coast-to-coast foot race across America.

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In the 1920s, an era epitomized by flappers, endurance competitions such as flag-pole sitting, eating, drinking and dance marathons, Pyle was a sports agent and promoter. The whole nation loved the swimming race from Catalina Island to the California mainland, with the contestants' well-publicized antics, so Pyle had an idea for the mother of all sports competitions: a foot race from Los Angeles to New York City.

He charged each entrant a fee of $125, with $100 to be returned at the end of the race or if they dropped out. It would provide them money to return home. The prizes to be paid, in cash, were a great sum of money in 1927. Winners were to receive $25,000 for first place, and other prizes reducing to $10,000, $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 for each through the 10th-place runner. Pyle, an enthusiastic promoter, planned to charge a large fee for communities to view the athletes as they passed through and to attend his side show carnival.

On March 4, 1928, 199 runners set off from Los Angeles for Puente, Calif., 17 miles away. Arrangements were to furnish the men food and sleeping quarters and a truck to haul baggage. Pyle rode in a fancy trailer named the "America,” which was reported to have cost $25,000. He had planned for 275 runners, so his cash accounting started out in the hole, and 76 men dropped out the first day.

The second day was scheduled to make it to Bloomington, a distance of 34.7 miles. Grumbling began early because of the poor facilities for sleeping and the noise of the carnival keeping everyone awake. Pyle had promised runners prizes for the winners of each day's run, but the prizes never materialized.

From there, each day was a grind, with runners having continual problems with blisters, bruises, boils, shin splints, charley horses, broken and fallen arches, corns and calluses, but no one developed bunions. They learned shoes were a problem in those days before there were running shoes and podiatrists.

Westbrook Pegler eulogized Pyle in his column as "the gay gray optimist who quit the small-town nickelodeon business to become the most spectacular and least hate-worthy man of his type and time, which was the American era of wonderful nonsense ... not crazy, but goofy.”

The race ended in Madison Square Garden after a long series of daily runs along Highway 55 to Chicago and past Lake Erie to cross the Hudson. The author's descriptions of the difficulties endured by the runners with foot problems and shin splints are endless. His descriptions of the runners' problems, obtained from personal letters written to loved ones and researched from newspaper coverage, tell about the men foolish enough to attempt the 3,421.5-mile race. His narrative shows a remarkable persistence in collecting the details that made the long race come to life for the individual runners from all over the world.

Pyle and the Bunion Derby may someday be forgotten, but his legacy is that he practically created the high-stakes culture of professional sports. Williams describes him well.

— Russ Long