Happy Birthday!

State Flag of Texas Turns 180 Years Old

By Will Johnson
Messenger Reporter

GRAPELAND – The Texas Flag turned 180-years-old on Friday, Jan. 25 and looks as beautiful today as the day it was adopted by Texas President Mirabeau Lamar in 1839.

Of course, prior to its adoption as the flag of the Republic of Texas, the pennon had an interesting history.

Long before Texas was its own sovereign nation, Texas was ruled by Spain between 1819 and 1684. In 1684, France claimed Texas as a territory and the French flag flew over the land.

In 1690, however, Spain reclaimed the Texas territory and hoisted its banner up the flag pole. The Spanish flag flew above Texas until 1821 when Texas fell under Mexican rule.

The Mexican flag waved in the balmy Texas skies until 1836 when the Republic of Texas declared its independence from Mexico.

According to the website, www.study.com, “In December of 1836, the Congress of the Republic of Texas approved the National Standard of Texas. This flag was simple but striking: it featured a yellow star in the middle of a dark blue background.”

The Texas flag remained that way until 1839 when the Texas Congress approved a new look for the flag using the same colors as the United States flag but with a striking, new design.

The Texas Historical Association notes the colors of the stripes – blood red, azure blue and white – were said to represent bravery (red), loyalty (blue) and purity (white). These colors are required to be an exact match to the colors found in the flag of the United States.

“On the new flag, there’s a bar of dark blue running along the left-hand side, with one white star in the middle. On the rest of the flag, the top half is white and the lower half is red. Because it has only one star, this flag is known as the Lone Star Flag,” the website stated.

The iconic red, white and blue Lone Star flag was officially adopted as the flag of the Republic of Texas on Jan. 25, 1839.

When the Republic of Texas became a state in 1845, the US flag replaced the Lone Star flag as the national flag. The newly created state, however, decided to convert the flag of the Republic of Texas to the official state flag of Texas.

It should also be noted that the Texas state flag is the only US state flag that used to be the flag of a separate, sovereign nation.

Will Johnson may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].

Similar Posts

One Comment

Comments are closed.