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Flag Day Experience

Details

Friends of Memorial Lane are proud to be the host organization for a very special FLAG DAY EXPERIENCE on our Historic Square.  

 

Award-winning filmmaker and historian Gary L. Foreman (a new resident of our community) will be bringing the largest version of the Hopkinson flag known in the United States to Granbury, Texas.  

At promptly 9:30 AM on Flag Day, Friday, June 14, 2023, there will be a display of this flag on the north side of the Courthouse.  With American Flags as a backdrop, this will be the perfect

setting for everyone to view this replica piece of history.  There will be a section of the parking lot blocked off from 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM.  This will give business owners around the square the opportunity 

to join Friends of Memorial Lane as we make sure that history is shared in truth and honor.


 Foreman's replica has been flown for Major League Baseball events, at National Parks, and has served as a backdrop for several History Channel and A&E documentary premieres.

 

 The Story goes:

 

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress set forth a resolution to create the first Stars & Stripes flag of the new United States.  Although it is commonly believed through oral history that flagmaker Betsy Ross of Philadelphia was the creator and designer of that first flag, it is now apparent that Francis Hopkinson of Bordentown, New Jersey actually was the individual that not only gets the credit for designing our first Stars & Stripes, he apparently designed the first seal of the new Republic.

 

The Hopkinson flag is very different in appearance from the Betsy Ross flag because of the alignment and shape of the stars on the blue canton.  Hopkinson's stars are in rows of three-two-three-two-three and are six-pointed, very common for this era.  The Ross design is the iconic circle and the stars are mullets or five-pointed.

 

Parking is available around parts of the square and on the south and east side of inside parking around the courthouse. It will be a short ceremony so seating will not be provided.