Final


  Paper presented at the North American
  Society of Sport History Annual
  Meeting, University of Wisconsin-
  La Crosse, May 25, 1985.


                                  This paper may not be reproduced,
                                  cited, or quoted without the
                                  written permission of the authors.
                                    Bruce L. Mouser, History
                                      Department, University of
                                      Wisconsin-La Crosse
                                    Edwin L. Hill, Area Research
                                      Center, Murphy Library,
                                      University of Wisconsin-La
                                      Crosse



                         GEORGE COLEMAN POAGE:

               THE LA CROSSE WISCONSIN YEARS, 1885-1904.



                 "Poage Runs Third in Olympic Games."



       Placed on page seven of the La Crosse Leader-Press on

  September 1, 1904, this very small line and accompanying article

  announced the first bronze medal to be awarded to a black athlete

  in a modern olympiad.1 What is most interesting, however, aside

  from the article's placement, is the unwritten part of the story.

i Poage had grown up in La Crosse during the 1880s and 1890s and

  his olympic success in 1904 was the second of a series of

  successes for black natives of La Crosse on the national scene.

  In July of that year, a locally raised black journalist

  named George Edwin Taylor had become the standard bearer of the

  National Liberty Party and would be the first black to seek the

  office of the Presidency of the United States as the candidate of