It was not a national holiday, but had been organized by a union to honor workers and their hard efforts with a rare day of rest, halfway between July 4th and Thanksgiving.
It's not an actual national holiday but at school I think we had maybe one day when I was in preschool or kindergarten where we would just talk about Paul Bunyan.
Several early U.S. presidents died on July 4. They include John Adams, who became the second U.S. president, even though he made a mistake about the country's most important national holiday.
The poll originally scheduled to take place over two days was hastily extended to try to boost turnout which has been poor despite the national holiday and free public transport.