Terre Haute's association with Labor Day predates the legislation which made it a federal holiday.

On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day Holiday Bill as an election year compromise amid labor turmoil.

Only three days earlier, Eugene V. Debs' American Railway Union initiated a national boycott against trains using cars made by the Pullman Palace Car Co.

The boycott against Pullman was not Debs' idea. Nevertheless, on the heels of one of the greatest triumphs of his career - the strike against the Great Northern Railroad of April 1894 - he rallied to support the union he had helped found.

The boycott had an immediate impact, paralyzing western railroads. In Terre Haute, about 210 railroad employees attempted to disrupt traffic. Long recognized as a foe of organized labor, President Cleveland tried to heal wounds he had inflicted by declaring the first Monday in September "Labor Day."

Any benefit the president might have derived from that gesture was extinguished on July 3 when Attorney General Richard B. Olney sought a restraining order, accusing Debs and the ARU of thwarting mail delivery and hindering interstate commerce.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois enjoined the ARU, and Debs in particular, from communicating with local unions involved in the boycott. Meanwhile, Olney convinced the president to dispatch federal troops and 3,600 deputy marshals to Blue Island, Ill., to enforce the injunction. Violence erupted, railroad cars were overturned and two men were killed.

In an effort to salvage the ARU, Debs urged George M. Pullman to reinstate his former employees without punishment, threatening a general strike if he did not.

Arbitration failed. On July 10, Debs and other ARU officials were arrested for conspiracy to obstruct interstate commerce. ARU offices were ransacked and the union's books and records were confiscated. Seven days later, Debs and his associates were charged with contempt of court for violating the original injunction. Debs ultimately was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court, a sentence served in Woodstock, Ill. The conspiracy charge was dropped.

Debs emerged from the Pullman strike and the imprisonment with enhanced national respect. Though the catalyst which prompted Cleveland to found a national holiday, Debs did not attend the Terre Haute Labor Day celebration on Sept. 3, 1894. Hart Daniels was the American Railway Union representative on the podium.

Debs' hometown began recognizing the first Monday in September each year as "Labor Day," beginning in 1889. And some other industrial cities celebrated the occasion for a few years longer.

Peter J. McGuire of St. Louis, national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, first proposed the holiday at a meeting of the Central Labor Union in New York on May 18, 1882.

Terre Haute was acquainted with McGuire. In early August 1881, he spent several days in the city while attending a national convention of trade union representatives which established guidelines for what became the American Federation of Labor. McGuire endorsed what labor historians refer to as "The Terre Haute Resolution."

The idea was adopted by machinist Matthew Maguire, secretary of the Central Labor Union. McGuire and Maguire are considered "co-founders" of the Labor Day movement. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, about 10,000 New York City workers marched up Broadway to Union Square, the first Labor Day "parade" in history.

Within a few years, organized labor in other metropolises adopted the idea. Unsanctioned parades were conducted at the risk of termination or blacklisting.

Terre Haute first commemorated Labor Day on Monday, Sept. 2, 1889. The lack of newspaper coverage suggests the celebration was modest.

Each year, the festival got bigger. On Sept. 5, 1892, the morning parade featured the Ringgold Band, the Grand Army of the Republic Drum Corps, the Brazil City Band and the New Goshen Band interspersed among contingents of numerous local unions proudly displaying colors.

The crowd was so large, according to the Terre Haute Gazette, it was "rather difficult to walk on Wabash Avenue, Cherry or Ohio streets."

After encircling downtown, the procession marched to 18th and Wabash where street cars transported participants and spectators to the fairgrounds at Brown and Wabash avenues. During the afternoon, John P. Stelle of Mount Vernon, Ill., national secretary of Farmers Mutual Benefit Association, delivered a "masterly address."

A handful of merchants closed at noon to allow employees to attend the festivities.

Once Labor Day became a national holiday, a few local industries allowed their operating stock to be used in the parade. On Sept. 3, 1894, "fully 5,000 people" attended bicycle and foot races sponsored by the Wabash Cycling Club at the fairgrounds.

The Electric Railway Band, Hughes Decorating Co. Band, the Prairieton Drum Corps, the Montrose Band, the Turners Section of the Germania Club and the Herculean Colored Quartette (sic) from Indianapolis were among the other attractions.

The featured speaker in 1894 was M.M. Garland of Pittsburgh, president of Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steelworkers, a leading figure in the July 1892 lockout initiated by Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Steel Co. of Homestead, Pa.

By 1902, Labor Day at the Vigo County fairgrounds included vaudeville, aerial circus and fireworks, a tradition maintained for at least two decades.