Why(or more appropriately, How) Memorial Day?

     And so it begins.  Summer 2014 is upon us, and for the next 98 days I'll be putting up fresh new articles every day talking about just what Summer in Chicago truly is.  What a better place to start than with the roots of the holiday that kicks off the summer.

     Memorial Day is the day where most people unofficially pin the beginning of summer.  Memorial Day is also the day set aside to honor those brave men and women who have given their lives in military service to our country.  But how did it start?  For that we have to go back to the early 1860s, when women in Georgia would decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers.  Over the next few years, there were sporadic commemorations of the war dead held at cemeteries throughout the country.  Finally, the war ended in 1865.  Along with that came the mechanics of honoring 600,000 dead American soldiers, giving the proceedings a new found significance.

     On May 5, 1868, General John Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic(an alumni association of sorts for those who had fought on either side of the conflict) proclaimed that a "Decoration Day" would be observed on the 30th of that month.  The first observance of said holiday proved to be a success, and all of the northern states had officially adopted it by 1890.  Originally the holiday(which came to be known as Memorial Day) was celebrated on May 30 each year.  But that changed in 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holidays Act took effect at the federal level, which was intended to create more 3-day weekends for federal workers.

     Now as for what this has to do with Chicago, here's some facts:  the Grand Army of the Republic was founded in Decatur and had a healthy presence in Chicago.  In fact, the GAR sponsored a room that was built into the first Chicago Public Library.  Additionally, General Logan was an Illinois native.  Beyond that, Logan is memorialized in two different places in Chicago.  The first is with a statue at the south end of Grant Park.  The second is the Logan Square neighborhood, which is named for the General.