The Kansas Shoe Repairman Responsible for Veterans Day
Published: 29 October 2025
By Jason English
via the Mental Floss website
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Veterans Day wasn't always known as Veterans Day. | LeoPatrizi/GettyImages
The reason we celebrate Veterans Day on November 11 dates back to 1918, when an armistice between the Allies and Germany was signed that essentially ended World War I. The first Armistice Day was celebrated the following November 11.
World War I was billed as the war to end all wars, but of course it didn’t. By the 1950s, with so many American veterans of World War II and the conflict in Korea, some thought the term Armistice Day was outdated.
How Armistice Day Became Veterans Day
Alvin King, a shoe repairman from Emporia, Kansas, probably isn’t in many history books, but he deserves at least a paragraph. In the early 1950s, he thought Armistice Day was too limiting. He had lost family in World War II, and thought all American veterans of all wars should be honored on November 11. So he formed a committee and, in 1953, the city of Emporia celebrated Veterans Day.
President Eisenhower making Veterans Day the holiday’s official name. | Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain
Ed Rees, Emporia’s congressman, loved the idea and took it to Washington. President Eisenhower—another Kansan—liked King’s idea, too. In 1954, Eisenhower formally changed November 11 to Veterans Day and invited some of Emporia’s residents to be there when he signed the bill. King was one of those invited, but there was one problem: he didn’t own a nice suit. His veteran friends chipped in and bought him a proper suit and paid his way from Kansas to the White House.
In 2003, Congress passed a resolution declaring Emporia the founding city of Veterans Day.
Read the entire article on the Mental Floss web site here:
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