Starting tomorrow in Manitou Springs, Colorado, it’s an event known as the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Festival.
And oh man, does this take some explaining.
The story starts in the 1880s.
Back then, as you might guess from the name, Manitou Springs was well known for its cold water springs.
A young musician from Massachusetts, Emma Crawford, was one of many people with tuberculosis who came to the area hoping the springs and the mountain air would improve their health.
Sadly, that wasn’t the case; Crawford would only live for about two more years.
Her last wish was to be buried on the top of nearby Red Mountain.
It was 7,200 feet high, but a dozen people from town made it happen.
Some years later, a construction project required that Crawford’s remains be moved.
She was still on top of the mountain, just in a different spot.
In 1929, that all changed; thanks to the effects of heavy rains, erosion and time, local kids found parts of Emma Crawford’s coffin, and parts of Emma Crawford, at the bottom of the mountain.
By some accounts, parts of the casket and some of her bones came sliding down the side of the peak!?!
After two very awkward years, the town buried Emma Crawford a third time in a local cemetery; her headstone there reads in part, “She will not be forgotten.”
And that is definitely true, because every year since 1995, Manitou Springs has hosted a festival in Crawford’s honor, or at least in honor of the way she reportedly came back down the mountain.
Teams in the races have one participant who sits inside the coffin, known as the “Emma,” and four people who push the (wheeled) coffins across a not quite 600 foot course, which is also the route of the festival parade.
The big prize is appropriately known as the Coffin Cup.
I bet at the end of the coffin races, the competitors are – wait for it – dead tired.
Today in 1964, Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall recovered a fumble and took off toward the end zone….
The trouble was, he took off toward the San Francisco 49ers end zone, not his team’s.
Instead of scoring a touchdown, the play turned into a safety for San Francisco.
The Vikings ended up winning anyway, so really, no harm done.
Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Festival (ManitouSprings.org)
Vikings: 50 years later, Jim Marshall’s wrong-way run remains an NFL classic (Twin Cities Pioneer Press)
