Laurence Eugene Myers was born in Richmond, Virginia back in 1858. He was in the first graduating class of Richmond High School. After graduation, the family moved to Jersey City, New Jersey and then to New York City, where he became a bookkeeper.
He began running competitively in 1878 for the Knickerbocker Yacht Club, he changed for the bulk of his career for the Manhattan Athletic Club. He died of pneumonia on his 41st birthday in New York City.
What you may not know about Laurence AKA “Lon” Myers is that he won 28 national championships. He also set world records and 11 different distances and held every American record for races of 50 yards to one mile. He set the world quarter-mile record while running the final 120 yards without his right shoe. He finished another race that he won running sideways, in conversation with a runner who had boasted that he would defeat him. From 1880 to 1888 he held the world records in the 100-yard, 440-yard and 880-yeard races. I wonder what else he could have accomplished had he lived longer?
NW Arkansas, come for a visit, stay for a lifetime.
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