Why Pueblo Is Called the Home of Heroes

Four men from this one steel town earned the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor. William J. Crawford served in the Army in World War II. Carl L. Sitter and Raymond G. “Jerry” Murphy were Marines in Korea. Drew D. Dix served in the Army in Vietnam.

There is a line people in Pueblo still repeat. In 1953, when President Eisenhower presented Murphy’s medal, he is said to have asked what it was about the place — “something in the water out there in Pueblo?” — that turned so many of its sons into heroes.

The official recognition came in 1993, when Colorado Representative Scott McInnis entered Pueblo’s record into the Congressional Record, and the city council adopted the “Home of Heroes” name. You can stand with that history in two downtown spots. The Medal of Honor Memorial at the Pueblo Convention Center holds four sculptures of the local recipients, alongside granite plates listing recipients going back to the Civil War. A short walk away on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk, the Center for American Values displays photographic portraits of more than 140 recipients.

For hours, exhibits, and the self-guided Walk of Valor, start at the Pueblo Home of Heroes site.