Jim Thorpe Borough officials continue to fight a legal battle to keep the town namesake's remains, but the quest comes at a cost.

The Sac and Fox Nation have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its argument for the return of famed Olympian Jim Thorpe's remains to his native Oklahoma.Thorpe is currently buried along Route 903 in the borough, where a memorial site was constructed to honor him.According to borough records, it has paid attorney William Schwab $26,825 for travel, transcripts and other expenses dating back to 2012.To offset the expense, two donations were submitted to the borough.The Jim Thorpe Sports Hall of Fame raised $7,820 last year."We have a passion for Jim Thorpe, the guy that's up on 903," said Hall of Fame President Jack Kmetz at the time.Anne Marie Fitzpatrick, who runs the Jim Thorpe birthday events, raised $950, which was presented to the borough in January 2014.Fitzpatrick kept a hand-lettered donation jar in her downtown gift shop.Meanwhile, the borough in May of this year unanimously approved retaining the University of Pennsylvania Law School Supreme Court Clinic at no cost for a potential appeal.Having died without a will in 1953, Thorpe's estate was assigned to his third wife, Patricia.She stopped an Indian burial ceremony in Oklahoma before it could be completed and received $500 from what were then the towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk in exchange for Thorpe's remains.The Sac and Fox Nation, along with Thorpe's sons Richard and William, argue that a 1990 federal law gives them the right to take the body back to Oklahoma.The law orders federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding must return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples.U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo in Scranton in April 2013 ruled that the borough was considered a museum under the law's definition because it received federal funds for water and sewer projects.After the borough's appeal, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 23, 2014, overturned the ruling, saying that the laws were meant for museums, which the borough is not.The court ruled that although the arrangement to have Thorpe's body buried in the borough, far from his birthplace, was unusual, it should not be exhumed for reburial just because he was a Native American.