It is home to numerous Christmas themed attractions, including Holiday World & Splashin' Safari and Santa's Candy Castle.

The town has the world's only post office to bear the name of the eponymous Christmas figure.

Because of this popular name, the post office receives thousands of letters to Santa from all over the world each year.

[4] The post office also creates an annual Christmas hand-cancellation pictorial postmark for use during December, which also attracts mail from all over the world.

A majority of Santa Claus residents live within the gated community of Christmas Lake Village, which was developed in the late 1960s.

The story of how it received the name of Santa Claus has roots both in fact and legend.

The town's unique name went largely unnoticed until the late 1920s, when Postmaster James Martin began promoting the Santa Claus postmark.

Harris' project caught the attention of a rival entrepreneur, Carl Barrett, the Chicago head of the Illinois Auto Club.

Disliking what he called Harris' materialism, Barrett planned his own tourist attraction, Santa Claus Park.

On December 25, 1935, Barrett dedicated a 22-foot (6.7 m) tall statue of Santa Claus that was erected on the highest hill in town.

The statue was promoted as being solid granite, although it was subsequently revealed to be concrete when cracks formed years later.

On August 3, 1946, retired industrialist Louis J. Koch opened Santa Claus Land, which is claimed to be the world's first theme park.

[7] More recently the development of Christmas Lake Village as a gated community has more than doubled the population of Santa Claus.

And in 2012, a local historic church and the town's original post office were moved to the site next to the large Santa Claus statue.

Local officials are touting the new highway as a major tool to draw new economic development.