Goodbye, Columbus: Today Is Not a Holiday in Colorado

Today is Columbus Day in those states that still celebrate the federal holiday on the second Monday of October.

Colorado is no longer one of them, even though this was the first state to officially observe Columbus Day, making it a holiday in 1907. After several earlier attempts, Colorado lawmakers finally voted to abolish Columbus Day early in the 2020 session, and on March 20, Governor Jared Polis signed a law officially abolishing the holiday in this state. Instead, on October 5, the first Monday of the month, Colorado observed the first Frances Xavier Cabrini Day, honoring Mother Cabrini, the Italian immigrant whose good deeds cannot be disputed.

For years, Denver was the site of protests over Columbus Day, with organizers arguing that the explorer was no one to honor. Glenn Morris, currently director of the University of Colorado Denver’s 4th World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics, was active in those demonstrations, and sums up the objections with this: “First, it is a holiday that celebrates Columbus, who was an African slave trader and who then also began the genocide against indigenous peoples in the Caribbean. He deserves no holidays, statues, or celebrations. Second, Columbus Day celebrates the invasion and colonization of the Americas, through the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, which is a U.S. legal doctrine that justifies the theft of Indigenous peoples’ territories and the destruction of indigenous nations to the present time.”

In ending the observation of Columbus Day, Colorado joined twelve other states and Washington, D.C.

And Colorado was decades behind Denver in dumping Columbus, which officially switched it out for César Chávez Day, an official city holiday on the last Monday of March. A few other cities had already replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The plaque honors Columbus; the sculpture was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci.

Nell Salzman

Even before the Colorado Legislature voted to end Columbus Day, celebrations had been losing steam in the state. There was no Columbus Day parade in 2019, with members of the Italian-American community instead choosing to celebrate the event in other ways. They’re taking the same approach this year, focusing on projects that include finding a place to reinstall the statue dedicated to Columbus that was toppled in Civic Center Park in June. Donated to the city in 1970, the statue by William Joseph was actually inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, according to the artist’s son.

And there’s another fight on the horizon in northwest Denver: whether to change the name of what’s officially known as Columbus Park to La Raza Park.

Goodbye, Columbus.

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword in 1977; she’s been the editor ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly CPT12 roundtable Colorado Inside Out, played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City, once interviewed President Bill Clinton while wearing flip-flops, and has been honored with numerous national awards for her columns and feature-writing.