Oklahoma man’s swim from Twin Cities to New Orleans grabbed headlines in 1930

Oklahoman Fred Newton swims down the Mississippi River near Inver Grove Heights on his way to New Orleans from the Ford Dam in this July clipping from the St Paul Dispatch Pioneer Press files The Mississippi River runs miles between the Ford Dam in the Twin Cities and New Orleans In Fred Newton swam every single one of them A -year-old sign painter from Clinton Okla Newton guessed the endeavor would take him about three months And maybe bring him fame and fortune I just picked myself a nice cool job for the summer Newton reported the St Paul Dispatch on July the day after he began his swim I m in the water from six to eight hours a day and I ve put on a tan the majority folks would envy He made it to New Orleans nearly six months later on Dec having endured cold and current even floating rafts of manure and offal as he passed the South St Paul stockyards He did set a distance record for open-water swimming but fame and fortune proved elusive Not much came out of it mentioned Worth Sparkman a Clinton native who first learned about Newton s swim during the COVID- pandemic from a brief article in Smithsonian Magazine I thought I didn t know anything about that and I lived there majority of of my life he reported I Googled Newton and there really wasn t a lot out there Now a reporter for Axios Northwest Arkansas based in Fayetteville Sparkman is working on a book about Newton and his under-appreciated exploits A cross-country swim It wasn t unreasonable for Newton to imagine that swimming the length of the Mississippi might make him rich and famous in Sparkman mentioned The previous decade had seen America s ascendant mass media fuel a flurry of headline-grabbing stunts Daredevils seeking an early version of viral fame tested their mettle by sitting atop flagpoles for days at a time going over Niagara Falls in a barrel or walking on the wings of airplanes in flight Promoters of the nation s new interstate highway system sought to capitalize on this trend in the late s organizing a cross-country foot race along Trail dubbed the Bunion Derby which boasted a prize nearly in in current times s dollars Seen in a postcard image Oklahoman Fred Newton stands next to an automobile with his ambitious goal painted on the door -- swimming the Mississippi River from the Twin Cities to New Orleans -- in the summer of Courtesy of Worth Sparkman The race passed right through Clinton where Newton earned a living painting signs for local businesses He was an artist his son Phil stated He could stand on the inside of a window and paint a sign on it that you could read from the outside While Newton was tempted by the Bunion Derby s purse his knees had been damaged by an amateur football career disclosed Sparkman who has read Newton s unpublished memoir in the discipline of his research So he devised an alternative Newton would swim across the country albeit north-to-south via the Mississippi River He says in his manuscript that he hoped to earn fame and fortune Sparkman declared Newton enlisted the help of his younger brother and a friend who agreed to follow along behind him in a rowboat with food and other supplies The trio spent three weeks camped on Lake Minnetonka where Newton trained with two long swims each day in June according to a description in the Clinton Daily News They hoped to be in New Orleans by the beginning of October The timing was unfortunate Newton s epic swim started small on July Entering the water on the Minneapolis side of the Ford Dam he swam only as far as Union Depot in St Paul where local reporters caught wind of this aquatic curiosity The Dispatch broadcasted that Newton ate just two meals a day supplementing his diet with candy handed to him by his companions in the rowboat Newton recounted the newspaper that although he had been vaccinated against all manner of river-borne diseases he still had one fear as he headed south I ve had all these serums but there s nothing a man can do for an alligator bite that I know of Newton advised the newspaper As he departed the Twin Cities on his second day in the water Newton encountered a very different obstacle Refuse from South St Paul s stockyards and slaughterhouses flowed directly into the Mississippi creating rafts of manure and animal remains There were enough islands of this that birds were veritably alighting on them and eating the refuse Sparkman mentioned Newton made it all the way to Hastings that day but that pace was hard to maintain It took him more than days to reach New Orleans where the water temperature of the Mississippi dips into the low s by late December according to the National Weather Operation Newton was greeted by a supportive crowd and newsreel cameras as he emerged from the water covered in a thick layer of grease to insulate him from the cold Related Articles How a St Paul newspaper wiretapped the city s police force years ago Jaws sank its teeth into Twin Cities moviegoers years ago Hortman began legal career with win in landmark housing discrimination incident Marine of Minnesota s Twins Platoon details legacy of Vietnam in new book Downtown St Paul has been declared dead before The publicity generated by his success resulted in a series of exhibition swims and speaking engagements but the Great Depression kept anticipated financial backers on the sidelines The timing was unfortunate for him Sparkman mentioned If he had been able to do it in he might have been better funded It was at one of his exhibition swims in Arkansas that Newton met his future wife The couple eventually settled with their family in Gainesville Texas where Newton went into the insurance business He died in at age We moved to a little lake outside of town Phil Newton announced He would still swim into his s and s Not too much