In 1847, Dominie Hendrik Pieter Scholte led 800 Hollanders to found Pella as the City of Refuge, and his baptism of an infant symbolizes both religious new life and the new life they came to enjoy there. His wife, Mareah Scholte, is remembered weeping after arriving in Pella and finding that all but one of her good dishes from Holland had broken and that she had to live in a log cabin. A blacksmith at his forge represents the working man, the early industry of Pella, and the hard work and dedication of the forefathers who helped the town and the United States prosper and grow. Wyatt Earp, widely known as a lawman of the Wild West, is also connected to Pella as a youngster who lived on East Franklin Street. Each May, as tulips bloom, Pella celebrates its Dutch heritage with the three-day Tulip Time festival, in which a woodenshoe maker, flower girls, and street scrubbers represent its colorful spirit.