April 19, 2011

Eddie Hamm of Lonoke (Lonoke County) was perhaps the greatest athlete produced by the state in the first half of the twentieth century. As a track and field star, he set many state marks, and, at the U.S. Olympic trials in 1928, he set a world record in the long jump at 25 feet 11 1/2 inches. Later that year, at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, he set the Olympic long jump record at 25 feet 4 3/4 inches. His gold-medal record performance stood until broken by Jesse Owens in 1936.