 | |
| Proportion | 2:3 |
|---|---|
| Adopted | April 12, 1919 |
| Design | White field with the seal of Austin and the text "CITY OF AUSTIN" in blue arched below it |
| Designed by | Ray F. Coyle |
The flag of Austin is the official municipal flag of Austin, Texas. The flag simply consists of a white field with the seal of Austin without the surrounding circle of text. Below the seal of Austin is the text "CITY OF AUSTIN", written in blue and arched upwards.
The flag has a proportion of 2 units tall by 3 units wide. The shield in the center is about 1 unit high and two-thirds of a unit tall and is divided into three even vertical strips of red, white, and red. The top of the shield is a blue isosceles triangle with an orange oil lamp in the middle. The red, white, and blue color scheme symbolizes that it is situated in Texas and the United States, as they both have red, white, and blue as their official colors. The oil lamp symbolizes knowledge and represents the various educational options within Austin, most notably the University of Texas at Austin located in the city (hence the choice of the orange color). Fimbriating the shield is a narrow gold border. The shield's crest rests on a white wreath. The crest consists of a gold latin cross with white wings outlined in blue protruding on either side. This crest is derived from the coat of arms of the city's namesake, Stephen F. Austin. [1] Austin was known as the "Father of Texas" due in large part to his efforts in the colonization and growth of the territory. The cross symbolized that an ancestor of Austin participated in a crusade, while the wings were designed to symbolize Saint Austin, Archbishop of Canterbury, who converted Wales to Christianity. This symbolism would prove important in the 1992 lawsuit. Behind the crest is a silhouette of the Texas State Capitol in red, with a blue outline. This represents its status as the capital city of Texas. Written in blue is the text "CITY OF AUSTIN", which is arched counterclockwise in the bottom third of the flag. [2] [3]
The idea for a city flag was first suggested in 1915 by Ellen Wyse, an editor of Gossip. She brought the idea to the attention of mayor Alexander Penn Wooldridge, who organized a committee of 38 people to explore the idea, [4] and soon created a flag design competition, declaring: [5]
By authority of the Mayor of the City of Austin, a committee, appointed by him, hereby institutes a competition for the purpose of securing a design for the flag for the City of Austin. It is desired that as much freedom as possible be allowed in the working out of the designs and in the selection of color. It is, however, essential that the design have artistic merit, that it be simple, and expressive of some salient characteristics of the city. The following suggestions, which in a measure embody the most typical characteristics of the city, have been made and may be used at the discretion of the designer[:] The natural beauty of Austin, the City of the Violet Crown, the lake and dam, the Capital of the State, the dome of the capitol, the seal of the city, an educational center, its industries, the sentiment of the past history, the derivation of the name-from Stephen F. Austin, an expression of the ideals of Stephen F. Austin in symbolic form, the use of the coat of arms of Stephen F. Austin.
The contest offered $50 to the first place design and $25 to the runner-up. By October 2, 1916, the deadline, the contest had received 130 entrants. Out of these 130, the 10-person committee selected the design of Ray Frederick Coyle, an artist [6] from San Francisco, as the first-place winner. Second place went to G.A. Geist, a Texas A&M University faculty member. Coyle's entry became the official flag and seal of the city after a few slight modifications to the design. The original had a shield of red, white, and blue, with the outline of the Capitol building at the top of the shield. The blue triangle came from the Austin family coat of arms and the cross and wings came from Stephen F. Austin's coat of arms. The committee added the oil lamp to represent the aspect of education in Austin, which replace a white star and crown that represented the City of the Violet Crown. The committee also added the wording "CITY OF AUSTIN" in block letters below the shield and the color blue to the lineage of the wings.
The city first began using the design as a flag and seal in 1917, following a shipment of several large and small flags to Scarbrough's Department Store, with one copy being presented to the city. The design was used on city documents, police cars, and other city property. The city copy from Scarbrough's was actually lost, according to a July 20, 1917, Statesman story, although it was later discovered. It was officially adopted by the Austin City Council on April 12, 1919. The resolution said that the flag would be flown on proper occasions. [3] [5] Jane Y. McCallum wrote about the flag in 1944, for her weekly column in the Statesman. In the column, she discussed the flag's lack of use and also questioned people on their knowledge of the existence of an Austin city flag. At some point, the original flag was placed in a desk drawer in the city clerk's office and was eventually discovered by an employee in 1975. The flag was framed and hung at the Old Bakery and Emporium, which served as the headquarters of the bicentennial for the city. The flag was then placed in an archive with all other materials involved with the bicentennial. It currently resides at the Austin History Center and is often displayed in the mayor's office. [5]
The flag placed 62nd out of 150 United States city flags in a 2004 North American Vexillological Association survey, ranking 7th out of 12 Texas cities. [7] The flag was also featured in Roman Mars' viral TED Talk, in which he described it as a "seal on a bedsheet", or a flag with nothing but a seal, an example of bad flag design. [8] Austin (specifically the State Capitol) was home to the 42nd annual NAVA meeting in 2008. Every annual NAVA meeting has an official flag that represents the host city. The flag chosen for Austin was a historic design drawn in 1839. It is a rectangular variant of a square auxiliary naval flag, consisting of a blue bar with a white star in the middle. Surrounding this bar is a thick white bar. Surrounding the white bar is another thick bar, this time in red. This flag represents the state of Texas. As the conference took place in the capitol building, it conveys the importance of Austin as the state's capital city. [9] KXAN, in a 2015 report, found that the city flag is nearly impossible to find and that not even Austin City Hall flies it. [10]
The flag once again reached headlines when Jon G. Murray, of the Society of Separationists, sued the city in 1992. Murray claimed that the flag violated the First Amendment, specifically the separation of church and state, due to the depiction of the cross on the shield. Prior to this lawsuit, Zion, Illinois was brought to court by the same group for the same reason and was forced to change its seal, as it was found that it had religious intent. [11] A federal judge decided that as the cross was used in Austin's coat of arms it did not endorse or advance Christianity, but instead showcased historical validity, meaning it followed the first amendment. The plaintiffs appealed the decision and took it all the way to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and even the Supreme Court, but the higher courts endorsed the previous decisions and did not find the flag unconstitutional. [1] [12]
Like many other flags with seals on them, various efforts have been made to redesign Austin's flag. One redesign was posted by Michael Kriegshauser to the design website Medium in 2015, which featured a diagonal strip that separated the flag into two colors, with blue on the left and red on the right, with a white five-pointed star in the canton. [13] Kriegshauser's redesign was featured by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper [2] and KUT radio station. [14] KXAN-TV published a YouTube video featuring the design, along with another proposal from University of Texas student Alec Rios, who took the blue triangle and stripes from the seal and flipped it horizontally, covering the whole height and width of the flag. The oil lamp was then replaced with a white five-pointed star. Inspired by Kriegshauser's post, local event website Do512 orchestrated a flag contest. [15] Despite the coverage, the City of Austin has not made a change to the flag.
The flag of Missouri, often referred to as the Missouri flag, is the state flag of the U.S. state of Missouri. It consists of a triband of three equal horizontal stripes colored red, white, and blue, with the arms from the Great Seal of Missouri in the center. Designed by Mary Elizabeth Oliver, the red and white stripes represent valor and purity, respectively. The blue stripe represents the permanency, vigilance, and justice of the state. The three colors also highlight the French influence on the state in its early years. The Missouri flag was established on March 22, 1913, when governor Elliot Woolfolk Major signed the State flag act making it official.
The coat of arms of the state of New York was formally adopted in 1778, and appears as a component of the state's flag and seal.
The flag of Georgia is the flag of the U.S. state of Georgia. Its current iteration was adopted on February 19, 2003. The flag bears three horizontal stripes and features a blue canton containing a ring of 13 white stars that encircle the state's gold-colored coat of arms. The ring of stars that encompass the state's coat of arms represents Georgia as one of the original Thirteen Colonies.
The flag of the state of Connecticut is a white baroque shield with three grapevines, each bearing three bunches of purple grapes on a field of royal blue. The banner below the shield reads "Qui Transtulit Sustinet", Latin for "He who transplanted sustains", Connecticut's state motto. The flag dimensions are 5.5 feet (1.7 m) in length and 4.33 feet (1.32 m) in width.
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 Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been represented by official but limited-purpose flags since 1676, though until 1908 it had no state flag per se to represent its government. A variant of the white flag with blue seal was carried by each of the Massachusetts volunteer regiments during the American Civil War alongside the National Colors. An exception were the two "Irish regiments", each of which was permitted to carry an alternative green flag with a harp symbol.
The North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) is a membership organization devoted to vexillology, the study of flags. It was founded in 1967 by American vexillologist Whitney Smith, and others. Its membership of 1,100+ comprises flag scholars, enthusiasts, designers, collectors, conservators, educators, merchants, manufacturers, historians, and hobbyists from most states and provinces of the United States and Canada, and more than 30 other countries.
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 city flag of Los Angeles consists of a background of three notched stripes of green, gold and red. The flag was designed by Roy E. Silent and E.S. Jones in 1931 for the Los Angeles sesquicentennial from 1781.
The flag of Vancouver was adopted by the Vancouver City Council on May 17, 1983. It was designed by Robert Watt, the director of the Vancouver Museum at the time, and later the Chief Herald of Canada. It features a white field with five wavy blue barrulets, and a green pentagon on the hoist side surmounted by a gold shield with the city badge, which consists of a mural crown with crossed axe and paddle.
The flag of Pittsburgh is a triband flag featuring vertical bands of black and gold and Pittsburgh's coat of arms in the center.
The flag of Baton Rouge contains a red field with a small shield and cursive text reading "Baton Rouge". The current flag was adopted in 1995 by the city council, replacing an older flag that had been in use since 1968.
The current flag of Billings, Montana, United States, is a "Canadian-like" triband of very dark blue and white with the city seal on the central white panel. The seal shows the Billings skyline line-drawn in blue, with a red disc representing the sun. The seal is outlined in blue with the text "Star of the Big Sky Country" in red capitals. It was designed by Fernando Méndez and adopted in June 1986.
The flag of San Antonio is the official municipal flag of San Antonio. The sketch of the flag's design, drawn by Spanish–American War veteran William W. Herring, was dated May 28, 1933. The design saw significantly more usage than the official flag, but was never officially adopted until 1976. The current flag is a slightly modified version of Herring's design, most notably removing the text formerly displayed.
The flag of Columbus is the official municipal flag of Columbus, Ohio. Its current design is a yellow, white, red vertical triband with the city seal on a blue field. Officially, the flag was adopted in 1929, although it is unknown if the flag was ever flown when it was first adopted.
The flag of El Paso is the official municipal flag of El Paso, Texas. The current design, an augmentation of El Paso's seal in the center of a dark blue field, has been in place since 1962.
The flag of Saint Paul is the official municipal flag of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Adopted via a 1932 competition, the current flag is a yellow-blue-yellow horizontal triband. A red shield depicting various aspects of St. Paul's industry and history is in the foreground and a red ribbon reading "SAINT PAUL" in yellow font below the shield.
The flag of South Bend, Indiana, was adopted by the city council during the mayorship of Pete Buttigieg on April 25, 2016. It is a field of white and yellow separated by a two blue curved lines with a white line between them and a red six-pointed star in the upper left corner.
The flag of Burlington, Vermont was adopted by the Burlington city council on November 27, 2017 during the mayorship of Miro Weinberger. It is five horizontal, zig-zag stripes of blue, white, green, white, and blue.
The coat of arms of Yekaterinburg is the official municipal coat of arms of Yekaterinburg, Russia. The current symbol was adopted on 23 May 2008 and consists of a French shield divided horizontally into two fields, with a white mine shaft and a white furnace within the top field, which is green, and a blue wavy bend within the bottom field, which is gold. A gold bear and gold sable are located to the left and right of the shield, respectively. A gold crown with a gold laurel wreath is located above the shield and a gold ribbon is located below the shield. A grey druse is located at the bottom center of the shield.