Indigenous People Day is commemorated in Salt Lake City along with Columbus Day

KUTV — On Monday in the nation's capital, there is no Columbus Day but in Salt Lake City there is an additional recognition.

Two years ago, the Salt Lake City Council voted to also commemorate the second Monday in October as “Indigenous Peoples Day” in addition to recognizing the Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus.

The Salt Lake City Council passed the resolution declaring the second Monday in October "Indigenous Peoples Day" for the following reasons, according to a statement released when the resolution passed in 2017:

• Salt Lake City is a city that welcomes everyone. We think everyone is valuable and has something to give to help move our community forward. We would like our residents and businesses to celebrate and continue to learn about the contributions today of Native Americans to our society and their history.
• We recognize that the second Monday in October is Columbus Day, a federal holiday since 1937 to honor Christopher Columbus and the contributions today of Italian Americans and their history. Celebrating the two holidays the same day is a way to inform our understanding of each’s contributions to our national fabric without demeaning the significance of either. Celebrating the two holidays is in keeping with Utah’s declared Indigenous People Day the Monday before Thanksgiving and the State’s declaration of November as Native American Heritage Month.
• President Lincoln, on October 1864, proclaimed the fourth Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. He made the proclamation because he recognized how necessary it was for a day of reflection on the realities of civil war and the hopes of a single nation when the war ended. This resolution adheres to that pattern. Public holidays that ask us to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going are necessary to help us find the path forward. While Native American tribes – by their history and treaties with the United States– are sovereign nations – every individual is part of a larger whole that makes up the U.S. Everyone here now is a part of greater thing with a future that is still being made

When the resolution passed, it made Salt Lake City the 27th city across the country that adjusted the holiday's official recognition.

Columbus Day is a state and federal holiday that started in 1792 as an Italian-American holiday. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the day a national holiday in 1937. It’s the seventh of 10 federal holidays in 2019 with Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas to follow.

There will be no mail delivered on Columbus Day but the United States Postal Service offices do offer self-service kiosks in some locations for drop-offs. FedEx and UPS will still be making deliveries.

(NOTE: The original version of this story stated that Columbus Day did not exist in Salt Lake City. That information was incorrect and has been corrected.)