I found this other article on a race that took place a few years earlier on Monday, November 15, 1875. The stadium was inside the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois.
Source: The Insane 6-Day, 500-Mile Race That Riveted America, Condenser version by Matthew Algeo, for Mental Floss, December 22, 2015. Original article: "Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport", by Matthew Algeo for Chicago Review Press.
It was just after midnight on Monday, November 15, 1875, and the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago was buzzing. Spectators swarmed the auditorium, hundreds of people craning their necks to get a glimpse of the two legends on the track. One of the men wore a black velvet suit with black boots, a silk sash draped across his chest. The other looked the part of a conventional athlete in white tights and a striped tank top. They stretched their legs, then approached the line. As the crowd roared, the starter counted: “One! Two!”
On “Three!” they were off. With hips swiveling and arms pumping, the Great Walking Match for the Championship of the World had begun.
The men on the track were Edward Payson Weston and Dan O’Leary, and what played out before a screaming fan base was more than just a race. Weston, a New England dandy who often competed in flashy outfits, was the man to beat. He’d made his name eight years earlier, when he walked the 1,200 miles from Portland, Maine, to Chicago in under 30 days, winning a $10,000 wager in the process. A blue-blooded Yankee, Weston embodied old money and an old America.
O’Leary’s story couldn’t have been more different. Born in County Cork, Ireland, he had arrived in the States, alone and penniless, some 10 years earlier. Finding opportunity in a burgeoning sport, O’Leary had jumped into pedestrianism less than two years prior to this race, walking an astounding 116 miles in under 24 hours and establishing himself as the working man’s hero. He also became Weston’s biggest rival. This was the first time the two squared off, and the public was lapping up the hype.
For Chicago’s Irish community, O’Leary wasn’t just an athlete; he was a symbol of hope. Four years earlier, another O’Leary—Catherine (no relation)—had been blamed for igniting the Great Fire of 1871 when her cow supposedly knocked over a lantern. In a city devastated by the flames, Catherine became a convenient scapegoat, an easy punching bag for an angry and xenophobic populace. Tension between the city’s Irish immigrants and its “native” population had only grown worse. And in that divide, Dan O’Leary was left carrying his community’s dream on his back—hoping to prove an Irishman’s worth by walking his way to glory.
From the start, it was clear that O’Leary, seven years younger, was faster. The difference in their gaits was also immediately apparent. According to one observer, O’Leary walked with a “straight form, quick stride, and bent arms.” He held his head up and looked straight ahead. Meanwhile, Weston seemed “rather to drag than throw his feet.” Worse still, the observer bemoaned how he seemed “to carry his head on his breast and to see nothing but the dirt before him.” O’Leary’s crisp form translated into results, and he shot into the lead, completing his first mile in 11 minutes and 3 seconds. It took Weston more than a minute longer.
With no grandstands to watch from, the audience pressed close to the tracks, jockeying for position. Some crossed over to view the action from within the concentric ovals, to the chagrin of the walkers. On several occasions, police had to clear the way for the pedestrians. Even the Chicago Tribune, despite its breathless coverage, seemed stumped by the frenzy. “Walking,” the paper observed, “is at best not an absorbingly entrancing sport.”
By the end of the first day, Weston trailed O’Leary by 19 miles (110 to 91). Still, he exuded confidence. His strategy was simple: slow and steady. Weston was convinced that fatigue would overcome O’Leary before the race ended. After all, the men got only three to five hours of sleep a night in small rooms in the Expo. For the most part, the two didn’t even stop for meals; more often they ate as they walked. Weston was partial to rare beefsteak; O’Leary preferred mutton and sipped hot tea and Champagne on the move.
When the two pedestrians retired on Tuesday night, O’Leary had added three miles to his lead. By the end of Wednesday night, he had stretched his advantage to 26 miles. It was starting to seem obvious that O’Leary would not wear out as Weston had expected, but Weston was too proud and stubborn to alter his strategy, and he continued to plod forward.
As O’Leary’s lead steadily increased, the Expo overflowed. The audience was packed with Irish immigrants shouting themselves hoarse in thick brogues as they cheered for their compatriot. Those unable to afford the 50-cent admission tried to barter for entry, offering to guard the building’s marble statues in exchange for free admittance.
Finally, as Saturday morning dawned, the outcome no longer felt like a question: O’Leary was ahead, 425 miles to Weston’s 395. By 3 o’clock that afternoon, the line for tickets snaked around the building. That the competitors were by now practically wilting from exhaustion only added to the excitement.
By 9 p.m., 6,000 people had packed into the Expo. “The crowd was motley, but largely respectable,” the Tribune wrote. “It represented wealth, standing, and brains, and thieves, gamblers, and roughs. Ladies were there in large numbers, some with husbands and some with lovers, but all had a terribly hard time of it in the ceaselessly moving and noisy throng.” Small boys crawled through the forest of legs to get close to the action. The older, more adventurous ones clambered up the Expo’s trusses and took seats on the beams near the roof, more than 100 feet above the floor.
As O’Leary neared his goal with each passing mile, a tense murmur moved through the building. Around 10:15, he completed his 495th mile, and it seemed clear that he’d reach 500 well before midnight. Weston, for his part, plodded wearily on.
At 11:15, O’Leary completed his 500th mile. The Expo erupted in delirious cheers. Men threw their hats in the air. The band played a celebratory tune. O’Leary’s wife greeted him at the finish line in front of the judges’ stand with a large basket of flowers. O’Leary paused, caught his breath—and then continued walking. When the hands on the big clock reached midnight, he had completed 503 miles. Weston had clocked only 451.
Both Weston and O’Leary would take home serious winnings: After expenses and a cut for the promoters, each walked away with more than $4,000—nearly $90,000 today. But it was O’Leary’s triumph that was celebrated by every class, from the businessman to the bootblack, as a city that had spurned his people now embraced him as a native son. Newspaper editorials sang his praises. Poets composed verses in his honor. O’Leary’s victory helped the Irish gain some acceptance, if not equality, in Chicago.
The article states that running was NOT allowed, contrary to Mr. Skummins description. The rule was that one foot had to be on the ground at all times. The American athlete Edward Payson Weston participated in races on both sides of the Atlantic (see illustration provided by Mr. Skummins, above), and in Chicago he was at the time the star, competing against Dan O'Leary, an Irish immigrant in the United States. The arena was comprised of two concentric tracks made of pressed mulch, more commonly known as “the tanbark."
On the American side at least, there was one more rule: Chicago, like most cities in America had "Blue Laws," regulations which forbad certain activities such as sales of alcohol or "public amusements" during Sunday. the holy day of Sabbath, this being a long standing tradition for the Protestant faithful in the United States.* Six days was as long as the athletic event could last, so the doors of the Expo opened at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday and in spite of the day and hour up to 300 people would pack the arena.
*On "Blue Laws":
In fact as late as 1980 - I believe there were Blue Laws forbidding the sale of non-food items and even toys in Texas supermarkets - I remember during a visit from Mexico when I was a kid, and instance when a cashier at an Austin supermarket told me that I couldn't buy a die cast airplane on Sundays - this was sometime between 1976-78. In 1993 when I went to college in Austin and I worked at a supermarket, sales of non-food items were allowed on Sundays, but alcohol sales were forbidden per Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission rules). Today, you can buy anything you want on Sunday as far as I know - I think the limitation is on the hours of the day (after midnight sales not allowed on Sunday, I think).
