Flag of Illinois

A DAR contest in 1915

Illinois had no state flag until 1915. Ella Park Lawrence, the state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, campaigned for one, and the DAR held a contest that drew 35 entries. The winner came from the Rockford chapter, designed by Lucy Derwent: the central emblem of the state seal on a white field. State Senator Raymond D. Meeker introduced the bill, and it became law on July 6, 1915, without the signature of Governor Edward F. Dunne, who never signed it.

A sailor’s complaint

For half a century the flag carried no name, and that turned out to be a problem. During the Vietnam War, Chief Petty Officer Bruce McDaniel of Waverly noticed that state flags hung in his mess hall, and that nobody could tell which one was Illinois’s. He wrote home asking for the state’s name to be added. State Representative Jack Walker sponsored an amendment, and Governor Richard B. Ogilvie signed it on September 17, 1969. A committee set specifications, and a design by Florence Hutchison of Greenfield, with ILLINOIS in blue below the emblem, became the official flag on July 1, 1970.

What the flag shows

• The eagle. An American eagle perched on a boulder on the prairie, taken from the state seal without its outer ring.
• The banner. In the eagle’s beak, a ribbon with the state motto, “State Sovereignty, National Union.” It is twisted so that “National Union” is the more prominent half, a choice made by Secretary of State Sharon Tyndale when the seal was redrawn in 1867 and 1868.
• The sun. Rising on the distant horizon.
• The shield and the boulder. A shield rests against the boulder, which carries two dates: 1818, the year of statehood, and 1868, the year of the current seal.
• ILLINOIS. In blue letters below, required since the 1969 amendment.

The flag commission and the 2025 vote

In 2023 Illinois created a state flag commission to consider a new design. It received 4,844 proposals in 2024, chose ten finalists in December 2024, and held a public vote in early 2025. The result surprised many: the current flag won, with about 43 percent of nearly 385,000 votes, more than the next five designs combined. The commission reported to the General Assembly, which has the final say, and no new flag has been adopted.