Staff Report

 

FIREBRICK, Ky. — The football helmet of the late, great Jim Thorpe will be on display from 1-to-5 p.m. Saturday at the Lawrence County Museum at 506 South Sixth Street in Ironton.

The helmet is part of a display from John Carpenter who owns the world’s largest sports memorabilia collection.

The helmet was given to Carpenter by the Johnson family of Portsmouth. John Johnson said the Homer Selby, owner of the old Selby Show Factory in Portsmouth, hired Thorpe to coach and play for the shoe factory team around 1927. The team went 7-3.

Thorpe often hunted on the Johnson farm near Minford and before he left town he gave the family the helmet as a souvenir.