What’s Open and Closed in Warwick on Columbus Day

Warwick, RI — Monday, Oct. 8, marks the annual commemoration of Columbus Day, a national holiday honoring the explorer Christopher Columbus, who landed on an island in the Bahamas in 1492.

While history has shown that Columbus was most likely not the first person to land on American soil, he was the most famous European in the Renaissance Era to make the journey east and make landfall. [It’s probably instructive to note that Latin American countries call it “Day of the Race,” which may be a reference to the competition among European nations to see which would reach the New World first.]

In recent years, the holiday has been replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day, a switch that was born in 1977, at a U.N. conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on discrimination against indigenous populations in the Americas, according to the Unitarian Universalist Association.  South Dakota, chose Native American Day in place of Columbus Day in 1990, and Hawaii has long celebrated Discoverers Day in its place.

More recently, Minnesota, Vermont, and  Alaska replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. But Columbus Day remains unchanged in Rhode Island.

In Warwick, city hall and the school department are closed for the holiday. Trash and recycling are delayed one day.

Public transit company RIPTA is following holiday routes on Monday. Check the RIPTA website for schedules.