Pueblo’s “Home of Heroes” Name Rests on Four Medal of Honor Recipients
In July 2000, Rep. Scott McInnis told the House that four of Pueblo’s 100,000 people had received the Medal of Honor. The nickname goes back further.
On July 25, 2000, Rep. Scott McInnis told the U.S. House that Pueblo, “has a population of 100,000 people; and of that population four of them have received the Medal of Honor, probably the highest number of Medal of Honor winners proportionate to population of any city in the country.” The remark is in the Congressional Record, during debate on H. Con. Res. 351, which recognized Heroes Plaza in Pueblo. The “probably” is his word.
The four
The Pueblo Home of Heroes organization lists William J. Crawford (Army, World War II), Carl L. Sitter (Marine Corps, Korea), Raymond G. Murphy (Marine Corps, Korea) and Drew D. Dix (Army, Vietnam).
Murphy’s middle initial appears as G on the Home of Heroes site and in his citation text, as posted by the American Presidency Project. A UCHealth article and the City of Pueblo’s history page use J. A 2007 Congressional Record tribute calls him “Raymond Gerald Murphy.” We use G.
The American Presidency Project shows President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented Murphy’s medal; its copy of the citation is dated October 22, 1953.
“From Pueblo” does not mean the same thing for each man. The 2007 Record says Murphy was born in Pueblo. Wikipedia gives Crawford’s birthplace as Pueblo, but lists Sitter’s as Syracuse, Missouri. A transcription of Dix’s citation lists his birth as West Point, N.Y. and his entry into service as Denver. Home of Heroes calls all four Pueblo’s recipients. We did not find a primary source on how each came to be associated with the city.
How the nickname arrived
The Home of Heroes site says McInnis read Pueblo’s story into the Congressional Record in 1993, and that the City Council then adopted the Home of Heroes theme. UCHealth gives a similar account. We could not find the 1993 Record entry, so the date and wording rest on those two accounts. The site says McInnis called Pueblo the only city with four living recipients from one hometown. The 2000 remark above is more cautious.
The memorial
The Home of Heroes memorial page says bronze artist David Dirrim and granite artist William Yates were selected in 1998. It places the memorial outside the Pueblo Convention Center on Heroes Plaza, with the names of “over 3,500” recipients on granite slabs and a 35-foot flagpole in a central garden.
The House resolution said the Medal of Honor Society would hold its September 2000 reunion in Pueblo and that the memorial would be dedicated during it. UCHealth says the memorial was unveiled that September. The Home of Heroes site says only 2000.
What we don’t know
- The text of McInnis’s 1993 entry, and the date of the council action.
- Whether any source has compared Pueblo with other cities. The 2000 remark was one member’s estimate.
- The exact unveiling date in September 2000.
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s recipient pages returned an access error when we tried them, so none of the details here come from that site.