JACKSON, Wyo. — The origins of Memorial Day date back to 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, and was called Decoration Day as the nation decorated the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Decoration Day was originally declared by Major General John A. Logan to be on May 30 because flowers would be in bloom all across the country.
General Logan ordered the nation to decorate soldiers’ graves “with the choicest flowers of springtime … Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”
The last Civil War veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate was a man from Wyoming named Francis E. Warren. According to the U.S. Senate, Warren earned the Congressional Medal of Honor while serving his country in the Union army during the Civil War. In 1890, he was elected as Wyoming’s first governor, and was one of the state’s longest-serving senators, serving a span of almost 40 years.
After World War I, Decoration Day expanded to honor those who died in all American-fought wars. The VA confirms Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday in 1971 and placed it on the last Monday in May to match the structure of other federal holidays.
Jackson Hole Town Square is home to the Teton County War Memorial, dedicated in memory of the Teton County Veterans.
