Supported by an unusual winter warming period, Mother Nature’s green thumb produced the blooming of a flower at the Buckhorne Country Store and Campground on Mon., Feb. 20, Presidents’ Day.
Although the grassy infield at the Buckhorne Country Store and Campground remained barren while waiting for the greenery of spring to arrive, the purple bloom of a flower beside the pathway leading from the camp store past the bathhouse to the camping area greeted campers on the warm, sunny day.
President’s Day is a federal holiday established to honor George Washington who was born on his father and mother’s colonial Virginia farm on Feb. 22, 1732.
President Abraham Lincoln established President’s Day in 1862 via a proclamation to honor George Washington on Feb. 22.
President Rutherford B. Hayes made it an official federal holiday by signing a measure that Senator Stephen Wallace Dorsey of Arkansas first set forth in the U.S. Congress, a measure passed in 1879, that pertained only to the District of Columbia. President’s Day was expanded to include all states in 1885.
Later on, Lincoln was added as an honoree, and the federal holiday became Presidents’ Day rather than President’s Day.