Gottfried Rodrigues, a joung adventurous newspaper man from Holland, the land of wooden shoes and windmills, arrived tonight in Ogden on his way to New York, from where, after duo training, he will endeavor to reach the Golden Gate city on the shores of the Pacific in record smashing time.
Two and a half years ago Young Rodrigues was one of the reserved, dignified "burghers" in the capital of the Dutch, where he was employed on the Telegraaf, the leading newspaper in Holland. That was before the wanderlust gripped his heart and made him bid farewell to the beloved foot protecting product of poplar and willow and led him in strange foreign lands, where the nerve quieting whiz, of ancient windmill was an unknown.
He started from Amsterdam and first "did" the old world. Dressed as a Dutch fisherman, wearing the necessary wooden shoes and flowing breeches, he walked from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to tho balmy beach of the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. He entered the gates of modern Paris, London and Vienna, as well as ancient Constantinople, Eternal Rome, Impervious St. Petersburg, mysterious Cairo and Alexandria.
While on his route he established many records in pedestrianism, and when he landed in New York, about 13 months ago, on the ill-fated steamship Princess Irene of the North German Lloyd line from Messina, Italy, where he almost starved to death during a recent disaster, he was undisputed champion long dlstauce walker of Holland, England, Switzerland, France and Italy.
Rodrigues is a highly educated young man of 22, 6 feet tall, tipping the scales at 145 and as perfect a type of splendid manhood and health as ever walked the streets of Ogden. He is purely built along pedestrian lines-long, slender, rank, still muscular - and possessing an enormous chest development acquired through years of walking and vigorous exercise.
In addition to his pedestrian ability, he is gifted with an unusually splendid baritone voice, whose strains have thrilled numerous show houses of almost every country in both old and new world; and even when fate scemed against him resounded on the crowded boulevards of London and Edinburgh.
In this country he has walked many thousands of miles; from New York he went via Chicago, Kansas City, Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and to Vancouver, B. C. He has made many record walks on this side of the Atlantic, his most notable feats being the record breaking trips from San Francisco to Los Angeles, 496 miles, in 190 hours, and Portland to Medford, 329 miles, over horrible, muddy, mountain roads of Oregon, in early spring, in less than five days.
He intends to stay here the rest of the week, and will lecture on his traveling experiences and also will show beautiful horoscope views from beautiful, fascinating spots of Europe and sing popular foreign melodies in Dutch, German, English or French.
In the early fall he expects to be in New York, the starting point of his
intended cross continental tour of 3800 miles.
The Evening standard, 31.07.1911