There's a place in southern Indiana where the streets are named after Christmas, the lakes are called Christmas Lake, Lake Holly, and Lake Noel, and a giant Santa statue watches over the town from a hilltop. It sounds like a holiday movie set. But it's a real town, and its name is Santa Claus. So how did it end up with such a jolly name?
The short answer is a paperwork problem. The settlement was first known as Santa Fe, but when it applied for a post office in 1856, the application came back with a message: "Choose some name other than Santa Fe." There was already a Santa Fe, Indiana. After several town meetings, the name Santa Claus was chosen, and the Post Office Department accepted it that same year.
A Name Wrapped in Legend
Exactly how the townspeople settled on Santa Claus has been lost to history. There are many different versions of the story, and the town considered other names it rejected along the way. What's certain is the outcome. Santa Claus, Indiana, became home to the world's only post office bearing the name of the famous Christmas figure.
For a while, the name didn't stick in its original form. In 1895, during a national push to standardize place names, the post office was renamed Santaclaus, all one word. It was changed back to Santa Claus on February 17, 1928.
Letters to Santa
The town's name went mostly unnoticed until the late 1920s, when Postmaster James Martin began promoting the Santa Claus postmark. Holiday mail began pouring in. It grew so heavy that the Post Office Department decided there would never be another Santa Claus post office in the United States, because of the staffing and logistical headaches it caused.
The flood of mail even caught the eye of Robert Ripley, who featured the post office in his Ripley's Believe It or Not! cartoon in 1929. Today, the post office still receives thousands of letters to Santa from around the world every year.
Volunteers known as Santa's Elves make sure every child who writes gets a reply from Santa. That tradition has been going on since at least 1914. Each December, the post office also offers a special hand-stamped holiday postmark that draws mail from collectors everywhere.
Christmas All Year Long
The famous name inspired some festive businesses. In 1935, an entrepreneur opened Santa's Candy Castle, a red-brick building said to be the first themed attraction in the United States. That same Christmas, a rival unveiled a 22-foot Santa Claus statue on the highest hill in town. It was promoted as solid granite, though it turned out to be concrete when cracks appeared years later. It was restored in 2011.
Then, on August 3, 1946, a park called Santa Claus Land opened, offering a visit with Santa, a toy shop, and children's rides. Today it's known as Holiday World & Splashin' Safari, with sections celebrating Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. Its wooden roller coaster, The Voyage, regularly ranks among the best in the world.
A Growing Town
Santa Claus has grown a lot in recent decades, from 927 residents in 1990 to 2,586 in 2020. Most live in Christmas Lake Village, where every street has a holiday name.
So if you ever drop a letter to Santa in the mail, know that there's a real town that takes the job seriously. In Santa Claus, Indiana, it's the most wonderful time of the year, all year long.
