The city that doesn’t celebrate Columbus Day: Embracing diversity resulted in 1984 launch of Ethnic Expo

It’s Columbus Day, but you’ll have to look hard to find people in Columbus who are celebrating the federal holiday.

For city and county government employees in Bartholomew County, as well as others who work in private business, it’s just another Monday.

School employees and students themselves have the day off, but that’s because it’s fall break.

The only hint locally that it’s a federal holiday is that mail isn’t getting delivered and you can’t renew your driver’s license.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

Click here to purchase photos from this gallery

It wasn’t always that way, however. For years, Columbus Day was known for sidewalk sales up and down Washington Street, according to advertisements from the 1970s.

The city would also select a Hoosier Miss Columbus and send her to the Ohio State capital to compete with women from 20 other communities also named Columbus.

For the record, roughly 2.7 million Americans live in 54 counties, districts, cities, incorporated towns, boroughs, villages and census designated places named after Columbus, according to federal records.

That includes the nation’s capital in the District of Columbia, a name derived from Columbus.

Celebrating Columbus

There was a brief period in the early 1980s when efforts were undertaken to make Columbus Day a special fall celebration.

When the observance began to include food booths, entertainment, a beer garden, crafts, antiques, a flea market and even hot air balloon races at Mill Race Park, local residents took notice.

There was also a parade that started at Columbus East High School, went up State Street, west on Third Street and north on Washington to Eighth Street, news accounts state.

But as the city began honoring the 1492 arrival of Europeans in the New World, extensive evidence was suggesting that explorer Christopher Columbus and his men were the first to commit horrendous atrocities against America’s indigenous people.

At roughly the same time, historians were openly acknowledging Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson’s presence in the New World 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

Since it’s estimated that as many as 18 million native Americans were already living in North America when Columbus arrived, questions were raised whether anyone was entitled to discovery bragging rights.

Columbus Day is the most inconsistently observed U.S. holiday, according to a 2015 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

While its business as usual today for the City of Columbus, town offices in Nashville in Brown County are closed in observance of the holiday, for example.

While the first federal observance of Columbus Day was made in 1937, it wasn’t made a legal federal holiday until 1971. Columbus Day has never been observed in Alaska and Oregon. In South Dakota, it is celebrated as Native American Day, while Hawaii calls it Discoverers’ Day, in honor of the state’s Polynesian founders.

Today, only 25 states currently list Columbus Day as an approved holiday. Numerous schools and universities across the country have also stopped celebrating the event.

Who are we named after?

There has been an ongoing debate whether the Indiana city of Columbus was named after the Italian explorer.

On Oct. 5, 1982, a history class taught by the late educator Jerry Greenlee told the Columbus City Council they could find no evidence the city was named after the explorer. A report in The Republic stated the group felt it was well accepted that the city was named after Columbus, Ohio.

No new evidence has emerged over the past 36 years that alter those conclusions, said Diane Robbins, executive director of the Bartholomew County Historical Society.

“There’s really no evidence to support one position over another,” Robbins said.

In April 1991, former county historian Susanna Jones suggested the name was chosen so pioneers concerned about poor health in early settlements would associate the town with both the hardy explorer and a well-established Columbus, Ohio.

“It was a name to inspire confidence,” Jones said. “No one could quarrel with a name like Columbus.”

The Ohio state capitol is, however, named after the explorer.

What is known locally is that on March 19, 1821, the first Bartholomew County commissioners changed the town’s name to Columbus just weeks after naming it Tiptona, in honor of town co-founder Gen. John Tipton.

There’s plenty of evidence the new commissioners were politically opposed to Tipton, according to local historian Ricky Berkey.

In the 1976 edition of the “History of Bartholomew County,” Berkey writes that turbulent disagreements over land transfers, political ideologies, unqualified constables — and even an election for justice of the peace that county officials claimed was not legal — were taking place just before the Tiptona name was rejected.

Over time, both General Tipton and Christopher Columbus would be accused of human rights violations. Historians have long noted that Tipton organized the forced removal of 859 Potawatomi from Indiana to Kansas in 1838, and more than 40 of them died.

Redemption

While communities are often helpless in exorcising perceived or real demons from their past, they can find redemption in the present and future.

That seemed to begin in 1983 when Bob Stewart was knocking on doors in his first mayoral campaign. Stewart was taken back by how many different nationalities were living in his community.

After winning the election, Mayor Stewart placed economic development on the front-burner to make Columbus less reliant on a single large employer, diesel engine maker Cummins Inc. Corporations in countries such as Japan and Germany were seeking to expand in the United States American during the 1980s, and Stewart took his calling card to their tables.

Before embarking on annual trips to Europe and Asia, Stewart always did his homework to understand the customs and social mores of the various cultures, said Lynn Lucas, retired executive director of the Columbus Area Visitors Center.

“Since we were getting these jobs, we needed to be a welcoming community that celebrates diversity,” Lucas said. “We’ve done that.”

Just one month after being sworn in as mayor, Stewart organized a steering committee for an ethnic festival that would be held during the Columbus Day weekend in October. Several thousand people were invited to the first public meeting in March 1984 to brainstorm ideas about food, dance, music and cultural exhibits.

On May 2, 1984, it became official. The new event would be called “Ethnic Expo,” a name submitted by Linda White and Andrea Sue Duke. While the steering committee liked that name best, the public’s first choice was “Fest of All.” Other highly rated suggestions included “Rainbowfest” and “Global Gala.”

So while the city doesn’t focus on explorers, Lucas said the Columbus Day weekend was used to make foreign-born residents feel more welcome, promote cross-cultural understanding and help secure local jobs from international companies.

The 35th Ethnic Expo will be held Oct. 12-13 behind Columbus City Hall, with a parade running through downtown Columbus.

Name recognition

While people today don’t readily connect the city of Columbus with the explorer, “Columbus” does conjure up the names of well-known Columbus natives such as Vice President Mike Pence, retired NASCAR champion driver Tony Stewart and the hit-making national singing group, “The Four Freshmen,” whose members included brothers Ross and Don Barbour.

The last time the city considered doing something to honor Christopher Columbus was in 1992, Lucas said. She recalled a local business executive advocated sailing miniatures of the explorer’s three ships (Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria) near Mill Race Park.

“There was lots of discussion, but it all went by the wayside,” Lucas said. “Instead, we focused our attention that year on making improvements at the park.”

[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Key dates in establishing Columbus ” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]

Jan. 9, 1821: Indiana General Assembly creates Bartholomew County, named in honor of General Joseph Bartholomew.

Feb. 15, 1821: Donations of land from John Tipton and Luke Bonesteel result in the establishment of a town. It’s announced the community would be called Tiptona.

March 21, 1821: Bartholomew County commissioners rescind their former order to name the town after Tipton. A short order instead directed that the town be known as Columbus.

June 28, 1864: Columbus is officially incorporated as a city in Indiana.

[sc:pullout-text-end]