Not only did Ellison “Tarzan” Brown win the Boston Marathon in 1936 and 1939, but the race’s most infamous feature, Heartbreak Hill , owes its name to him. The Narragansett Indian broke the heart of crowd favorite Johnny Kelley atop that 100-foot rise en route to victory 90 years ago. But despite his running success, Brown, who was born in 1913, lived in poverty. He scraped by chopping firewood and laying bricks, and, at 61, he died after a driver ran him over outside a seaside Rhode Island tavern. For decades, it felt like history forgot him. In late 2024, a quintet of runners residing in Brown’s native Westerly, Rhode Island, came up with a plan: They would raise $50,000 to commission a life-size bronze statue of their hero and plant it in Westerly’s Rooney Park, near the train tracks Brown once plied on long runs. “Tarzan Brown was Native American, and the Native Americans have been treated terribly,” says Jim Hirst, a 67-year-old veteran coach who was central to the statue project.…