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Santa Claus, Indiana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Santa Claus is a town in Spencer County, Indiana, in the United States. In 1990 it had a population of 927. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 2,041. The ZIP code is 47579.
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The community of Santa Fe was laid out in 1846. The story of how it received the name of Santa Claus has roots both in fact and legend. In January of 1856 the town applied for a post office to be installed. They submitted their application under the name of Santa Fe. The application was returned to them with the message, "Choose another name than Santa Fe." The process of settling upon the name of Santa Claus has been lost to legend. There are many different versions of the story. And there were other choices as well that the town did not settle upon. What is known is that on May 21, 1856 the name of Santa Claus was accepted by the Post Office Department, and the first post office was opened with John Specht as its first postmaster.
On June 25, 1895 the Post Office name was changed to the one word "Santaclaus", but the name was changed back to Santa Claus on February 17, 1928.
The town’s unique name went largely unnoticed until the late 1920’s, when Postmaster James Martin began promoting the Santa Claus postmark. The growing volume of holiday mail became so substantial that it caught the attention of Robert Ripley in 1929, who featured the town’s post office in his nationally-syndicated “Believe It or Not” cartoon.
The town's new national fame had caught the attention of Vincennes entrepreneur Milton Harris. Harris created Santa's Candy Castle, the first tourist attraction in Santa Claus, Indiana, which is also purported to be the first themed attraction in the United States. Santa Claus Town attractions included a red-brick Candy Castle, sponsored by Curtiss Candy and dedicated December 22, 1935, and the Toy Village, a series of miniature fairytale buildings sponsored by prominent national toy manufacturers. Santa Claus Town led to the creation of the town’s first newspaper, “The Santa Claus Town News”, and the Santa Claus Chamber of Commerce.
Harris’ project caught the attention of a rival entrepreneur, Carl Barrett, the Chicago head of the Illinois Auto Club. Disliking what he called Harris’ materialism, Barrett planned his own tourist attraction “Santa Claus Park”. On December 25, 1935, Barrett dedicated a 22 foot tall statue of Santa Claus that was erected on the highest hill in town. The statue was promoted as being solid granite, although it was subsequently revealed to be concrete when cracks formed years later.
Years of lawsuits between Harris and Barrett were costly distractions for the two entrepreneurs. The lawsuits centered around land ownership and went all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court. National news media covered the ongoing story of "Too Many Santas". Over the years both entrepreneur’s visions became vacant and neglected.
In 1946 the late industrialist Louis J. Koch set up Santa Claus Land, which is claimed to be the first theme park in the world. The park's name was changed to Holiday World in 1984. In 1993 water rides were added under the name Splashin' Safari, thus the name Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.
More recently the development of Christmas Lake Village as a gated community has more than doubled the population of Santa Claus. In 2005, a local development company purchased Santa's Candy Castle and other buildings that comprised Santa Claus Town and announced plans to restore and re-open them to the public. Santa's Candy Castle was the first building of the original Santa Claus Town to be re-opened to the public, when its doors opened on July 1, 2006. Plans exist to re-open the remainder of the original attraction in the future.
Denver Broncos and former Vanderbilt Commodores quarterback Jay Cutler is from Santa Claus.
A Santa Claus resident was on the Christmas special of NBC's Deal or No Deal on December 25th 2006.
Santa Claus is located at (38.118870, -86.921422)GR1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 14.4 km² (5.6 mi²). 13.4 km² (5.2 mi²) of it is land and 1.0 km² (0.4 mi²) of it (6.82%) is water.
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 2,041 people, 732 households, and 620 families residing in the town. The population density was 152.1/km² (393.8/mi²). There were 818 housing units at an average density of 61.0/km² (157.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the town was 99.22% White, 0.44% Asian, 0.20% from other races, and 0.15% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.69% of the population.
There were 732 households out of which 39.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 79.0% were married couples living together, 4.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 15.2% were non-families. 12.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.79 and the average family size was 3.05.
In the town the population was spread out with 29.3% under the age of 18, 5.0% from 18 to 24, 32.2% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and 9.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 95.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.6 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $60,388, and the median income for a family was $61,991. Males had a median income of $44,514 versus $24,050 for females. The per capita income for the town was $23,957. About 1.0% of families and 1.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.3% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over.
This town was mentioned in the September 28, 2006 episode of The Colbert Report, a talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central.
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