ST. LOUIS – The first Summer Olympics held in the U.S. looked unlike anything that had happened previously in Europe.Or that would happen again anywhere else.The Games originally were awarded to Chicago for 1904, but organizers of the World's Fair in St.
Louis put up such a fuss about a second international event held simultaneously that they threatened to have their own athletic events.
It took the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, to forge peace by moving the Olympics south.Not that he did so with much glee.
Writing later of the bizarre extravaganza that took place that summer, de Coubertin said: "I had a sort of presentiment that the Olympiad would match the mediocrity of the town.”Mediocre?