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Use | Civil flag |
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Adopted | December 16, 1940. Pictured version is c. 1940. |
Design | A white field with a yellow border, with a phoenix rising from flames. On a ribbon below, "Oro en paz. Fierro en guerra." with "SAN FRANCISCO" in blue at the bottom. |
The Flag of the City and County of San Francisco contains a rising phoenix in the center, often assumed[ by whom? ] to refer to the city's recovery from the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires. However, the phoenix had been a civic symbol of San Francisco at least since 1852, when it featured on the first official seal of the city. The Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco codified the design of the current flag on December 16, 1940.
The first document city flag was in June of 1861 when the city's board of supervisors ordered a set of three flags made by Norcross. One of the flags was the city flag with the "Coat of arms of San Francisco" on its field. The flag costed $50 ($1,791 adjusted for inflation) to make. [1] A similar flag was described 1 year later. It said that the flag hung in Platt's Hall during a fund for the Wounded Soldiers of the Civil War. [2]
In 1900, banker and art patron Mayor James Duval Phelan, mayor from 1897 to 1902, recommended to the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco that San Francisco adopt a flag and motto. A contest was held, and more than one hundred proposals were submitted. Artist John M. Gamble's proposal was selected.
Gamble's concept depicted a black phoenix rising from gold flames on a white field. The mythological phoenix appears in many ancient cultures and is a symbol of immortality. When the long-lived phoenix feels death is near, it builds a nest of aromatic wood and sets it afire. A new phoenix then arises from the ashes, just as San Francisco arose from the great fires of the 1850s.
Below the phoenix and flames, the Spanish motto "Oro en paz y fierro en guerra" ("Gold in Peace and Iron in War") was on a black ribbon. The motto refers to the city's then-recent experience during the Spanish–American War as the embarkation point for troops to the Philippines in 1898. [3]
Based on the motto, San Francisco's official city colors now are gold and black; these two colors decorate the dome of San Francisco City Hall.
The original design of the San Francisco flag was executed in 1900 by Robert Ingersoll Aitken. [4] Now best known as a sculptor, Aitken would go on to create both the Victory figure atop the Dewey Monument, in San Francisco's Union Square, and the figures, above the inscription "Equal Justice Under Law," that preside over the famous entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court Building.
The San Francisco Police Department used the Aitken flag for ceremonial occasions from 1900 until sometime in the early 1920s. But, by 1923, the S.F.P.D. had adopted a different design that the San Francisco Fire Department had been using at least since 1915. This design featured the same symbolic elements — a phoenix above a motto ribbon — but used different artwork and introduced different colors, such as brown tones for the phoenix and red and orange for the flames. The fire department and police department each added to their shared symbolic elements information — "S.F.F.D." and "San Francisco Police Department," respectively — that marked these as departmental flags, not city flags.
In the early 1930s, the San Francisco Mayor's office began using a version of the police and fire department flags that featured only the symbolic elements.
In December 1940, the Board of Supervisors added to this "new" flag the name "San Francisco" in bold, blue letters and codified all of these elements as the official San Francisco flag.
The yellow border, now reproduced as a part of the flag, was originally intended to be a gold fringe, but mistakenly became incorporated into the design.[ citation needed ] When used indoors, as is the custom, a gold fringe is added to what was originally intended to be the fringe.
Millbrae is a city located in northern San Mateo County, California, United States. To the northeast is San Francisco International Airport; San Bruno is to the northwest, and Burlingame is to the southeast. It is bordered by San Andreas Lake to the southwest. The population was 23,216 at the 2020 census.
The Bear Flag is the official flag of the U.S. state of California. The precursor of the flag was first flown during the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt and was also known as the Bear Flag. A predecessor, called the Lone Star Flag, was used in an 1836 independence movement; the red star element from that flag appears in the Bear Flag of today.
The Great Seal of the State of California was adopted at the California state Constitutional Convention of 1849 and has undergone minor design changes since then, the last being the standardization of the seal in 1937. The seal shows Athena in Greek mythology, the goddess of wisdom and war, because she was born an adult, and California was never a territory; a California grizzly bear, the official state animal, feeding on grape vines, representing California's wine production; a sheaf of grain, representing agriculture; a miner, representing the California Gold Rush and the mining industry; and sailing ships, representing the state's economic power. The word Eureka, meaning "I have found it", is the California state motto.
The flag of Delaware consists of a buff-colored diamond on a field of colonial blue, with the coat of arms of the state of Delaware inside the diamond. Below the diamond, the date December 7, 1787, declares the day on which Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. The colors of the flag reflect the colors of the uniform of General George Washington.
The state flag of West Virginia was officially adopted by the West Virginia Legislature on March 7, 1929. The present flag consists of a pure white field bordered by a blue stripe with the coat of arms of West Virginia in the center, wreathed by Rhododendron maximum and topped by an unfurled red ribbon reading, "State of West Virginia." It is the only state flag to bear crossing rifles, meant to illustrate the importance of the state's fight for liberty during the Civil War as the southern unionist 35th state.
In military organizations, the practice of carrying colours, standards, flags, or guidons, both to act as a rallying point for troops and to mark the location of the commander, is thought to have originated in Ancient Egypt some 5,000 years ago. The Roman Empire also made battle standards reading SPQR a part of their vast armies. It was formalized in the armies of Europe in the High Middle Ages, with standards being emblazoned with the commander's coat of arms.
The seal of the Territory of Idaho was adopted in 1863 and redrawn several times before statehood in 1890. The first state Great Seal was designed in the 1890s by Emma Edwards Green, the only woman to design a U.S. state seal. That seal was used until 1957, when the seal was slightly redrawn by Paul B. Evans and the Caxton Printers, Ltd. at the request of the state government, in order to add more anthropocentric elements to the centered shield.
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the City and County of San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco International Airport in San Mateo County. In 2000, the SFPD was the 11th largest police department in the United States.
The flag of Detroit was designed in 1907 by David E. Heineman and was officially adopted as the city's flag in 1948. Its design has been slightly altered several times in the years since, the most recent in 2000.
Diamond Heights is a neighborhood in central San Francisco, California, roughly bordered by Diamond Heights Boulevard and Noe Valley to the north and east and Glen Canyon Park to the south and west. It is built on three hills: Red Rock Heights on the northwest, Gold Mine Hill in center, and Fairmount Heights on the southeast.
Robert Ingersoll Aitken was an American sculptor. Perhaps his most famous work is the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court Building.
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The Seal of the City and County of San Francisco includes a shield, crest, supporters and a motto, ringed with the municipality's name.
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The Chinatown Historic District is a neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii, known for its Chinese American community. It is one of the oldest Chinatowns in the United States.
Gordon J. Lau Elementary School, founded as The Chinese School and was once named Oriental Public School, was a public school located in Chinatown, San Francisco, California. It was initially set up in 1859 as a segregated school for schoolchildren of Chinese descent, part of the growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States that arose in the late 1800s. The school has been renamed a number of times, most recently in 1998 to its current name in honor of the city's first Chinese-American supervisor.
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