Texas-sized celebration of many flags
In December 1845 – 170 years ago – Texas joined the United States, bringing with it a state flag and later adding a municipal flag for its capital. If that’s not sufficient, there’s also a college flag for one of Texas’s many institutions of higher education.
STATE FLAG
The Texas state banner, created six years before statehood, is remarkably simple in design. It’s appropriate that the Lone Star State’s red-white-and-blue flag contains just a single star. And it’s not surprising that it’s a sizable star, given the preference of Texans for gigantic things, including the state’s sprawling square mileage and a 1950s’ movie about it titled – what else? – “Giant.”
After Texas entered the Union, a newspaper said, “We had the pleasure of seeing for the first time the Star Spangled Banner waving triumphantly over the Lone Star Flag….[It] was the signal of…rejoicing.”
The state flag is so beloved by Texans that, decades ago, the legislature commended a man who beat up someone who had desecrated the standard.
MUNICIPAL FLAG
As for the state capital, Austin was chosen by “a site-selection commission appointed by the Texas Congress in January 1839,” according to the Texas State Historical Association. The commission was “impressed by [the site’s] beauty, healthfulness, abundant natural resources, promise as an economic hub, and central location in Texas territory.”
The city’s name honors Stephen Austin, a Virginian who helped to establish the Republic of Texas in the 1830s. He said that “the prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors, the idol of my existence – it has assumed the character of a religion, for the guidance of my thoughts and actions.”
A hundred years ago, Austin’s municipal flag was designed by the winner of a contest to give the city its own banner, but it wasn’t officially adopted until 1919. Ironically, the design was the work of a man in San Francisco, not by a Texan.
Resting on a white field, the municipal flag was derived from Stephen Austin’s coat of arms. It contains symbolic images, such as a lamp to represent knowledge and the silhouette of the state capitol building. The crest also features a controversial element: a Christian cross. Challenged many years ago as a violation of the separation of church and state, the cross remains on the flag, due to a court ruling.
COLLEGE FLAG
Texas boasts dozens of universities within its borders, many of them with unusual college flags. A good example is the banner of the University of Texas San Antonio. Its sports mascot is the roadrunner, but definitely not the wacky cartoon character.
Displayed on a blue-and-orange background, Rowdy the Roadrunner faces right with a fierce glare and sharp beak. Chosen as the mascot by a student vote, he comes with an extensive faux-biography, including his birthplace and his pride in his own “stunning good looks.”
Only in Texas could a fictional bird brag.