StLouis City Flag: Explained
February 14th, 2024 marks the 260th year anniversary of the founding of St. Louis, as well as the 60th birthday of the St. Louis City flag. To celebrate, let’s talk about the amazing design elements of the St Louis City flag a bit. Generally speaking, the make up of flag consists of it’s solid red color with white wavy lines, and a yellow circle encompassing a fleur de lis symbol. However, did you it all has specific meanings?
To begin, the white wavy lines pay homage to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, which is the convergence of the two rivers. Each river begins many states away: with the Missouri River beginning out west and the Mississippi River beginning far up north.
The yellow circle, or “gold coin” in the flag represents the Louisiana Purchase. It was the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory: the land in the Mississippi River's drainage basin west of the river which included Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nerbraska, South Dakota, Arkansas, parts of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Minnesota. The coin also contains the fleur de lis, a symbol representing the French who originally founded St. Louis. The fleur de lis itself is a French illustration of a lily flower primarily depicted on the traditional coat of arms, in heraldry, as well as often used in royal emblems throughout France particularly from the High Middle Ages until the French Revolution.
Many variations of color pallets show up in the flag as well which reflect a wide array of meaning. For instance, the red and yellow represent Spain, who held the territory in and around St. Louis from 1762 - 1803. The colors white and yellow draw inspiration of Royal France; and the blue, white, and red representing Napoleaonic France. Inversely, though, the red, white, and blue bare kinship to the United States of America.
Onetime Supply Co.’s rendition of the “Fleur De Lis” compresses the twin rivers and French lily into one solid and very versatile image. It’s a way to combine all the very amazing design elements and history into one easy to print and use image that makes it very versitile and mallible to use. Feel free to read more about it on our previous blog post: St Louis Fleur De Lis.