Hoosier History Live is an independently produced new media project about Indiana history, integrating podcasts, website, newsletter, and social media. Its original content comes initially from a live with call in weekly talk radio show hosted by author and historian Nelson Price. You can hear the show live Saturdays from noon to 1 pm ET at WICR 88.7 fm or stream the show live at the WICR HD1 app on your phone.
December 16, 2023
History of Santa Claus, Ind., and letters from around the world
Whether you have been naughty or nice during this yuletide season, have you wondered how a sleepy village founded in southwestern Indiana during the 1840s became the country's only town that has a post office with the Santa Claus name?
Hundreds of thousands of "Dear Santa'' letters from children around the world have been delivered to Santa Claus, Ind., since the early 1900s. And the Spencer County town (approximate pop.: 2,580) has become a tourist destination, with an internal, recreated historic village that includes a Santa Claus Museum, a church built in the 1880s and a towering Santa statue that weighs 40 tons.
To celebrate the season and its spirit, Hoosier History Live will explore the evolution of the unusual town (its original name was not Santa Claus) and the letters, which are answered by a joyful army of community volunteers known as "elves". They toil in the recreated historic village, which opened within the town in 2006.
More than 100 years before that, though, the mountains of children's letters began flowing in. The mail escalated after the popular "Ripley's Believe It or Not" column syndicated to newspapers across the country put a spotlight on Santa Claus, Ind., in 1930.
Our guide for the history of the town and the letters will be travel and food writer Jane Simon Ammeson, who is the co-author, with Patricia Yelling Koch, of the book "Santa's Daughter". Mrs. Koch, 92, is the founder of the Santa Claus Museum & Village; her father was a long-time, beloved civic leader who began portraying Santa during the 1940s.
That was at a theme park that opened after World War II called Santa Claus Land. Eventually, the theme park broadened its focus and is known today as Holiday World and Splashin' Safari. Spencer County also is the home of historic sites associated with the youth of Abraham Lincoln, who lived in the area from ages 7 to 21. In fact, our guest Jane Ammeson's other books include "Lincoln Road Trip" (Red Lightning Books); she was a guest on Hoosier History Live about Lincoln-related sites on a show in 2019.
According to Jane, the town of Santa Claus was named Santa Fe (locals pronounced it "Fee") when it was laid out in 1846. When the town sought to establish a post office, the request was denied because another Indiana community named Santa Fe had started elsewhere. Tasked with coming up with a new name, townsfolk sat around a pot-bellied stove on Christmas Eve in 1855 and brainstormed, according to folklore. Jane will share further details during our show.
She also will describe how the children's letters to Saint Nick are handled. Beginning in the 1920s, the town's postmaster answered the mail. That eventually became unfeasible with the increasing volume. In addition to being sent from across the United States, letters have been mailed by children in Germany, Japan, France and elsewhere overseas, according to the Santa Claus Museum.
In 1976, Mrs. Koch and other civic leaders in Santa Claus organized the "elves" to handle the letters. Decades later, she founded the Santa Claus Museum & Village to save some of the town's historic buildings, including the original post office. The historic structures also include a wood church, was built in 1800 and originally was called the German Evangelical St. Paul's Church. With a steeple that makes it 70 feet tall, the church is open for tours and has a wooden pump organ and a cast-iron, pot-bellied stove.
The village also includes the statue of Santa, which is 22 feet tall. Built in 1935, it was dedicated to "the children of the world".
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