History
"Mule Day" has been a popular Columbia tradition for nearly 170 years, since the 1840s. It began as "Breeder's Day", a single day livestock show and mule market event held on the first Monday in May. Over time, "Mule Day" evolved from a single day event into a multi-day festival, attracting thousands of attendees, lasting almost a week. According to its official website, the heavy involvement of Maury County in the mule industry caused the event to grow for a time into "one of the largest livestock markets in the world."
In 1933 Thomas Marion Brown had the idea for a Mule Day Parade and Celebration as a way to bring in money to the community. He approached W.D. Hastings of the Daily Herald & J.J. Johnson to bring this event to life. They went to the Chamber of Commerce and in 1934 the First Mule Day Parade was a reality. Tom designed the Mule Day Crown which is on display in the Maury County Public Library. He was the first Grand Marshall and led the parade for about 7 years.
Mule Day suddenly gained wider notice in 2006 when the Mule Day Parade listing in the National Asset Database, a Department of Homeland Security(DHS) list of potential terrorism targets, was featured in a New York Times article.
Read more about this topic: Mule Day
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)