The Story of Presidents' Day

It all began in 1800.  Following the death of George Washington in 1799, his February 22 birthday became a perennial day of remembrance. 

While Washington’s birthday was an unofficial observance for most of the 1800s, it was not until the late 1870s that it became a federal holiday.  Senator Stephen Wallace Dorsey of Arkansas was the first to propose the measure, and in 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law – the first to celebrate the life of an individual American.   Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, signed into law in 1983, was the second.

Read on to find out the story of Presidents' Day and who championed to shift the celebration of several federal holidays from specific dates to a series of predetermined Mondays.