Flag of Texas

What the flag shows

• The blue stripe. A vertical stripe at the staff, one-third of the flag’s length.
• The star. A single white five-pointed star, one point up, centered in the blue, sized so a circle through its points is three-fourths the width of the stripe.
• White and red. Two equal horizontal stripes, white over red, filling the rest of the flag.

The flag is two-thirds as wide as it is long. By law its red and blue match the colors of the US flag, specified as Pantone 193 and Pantone 281, and the red stands for bravery, the white for purity and the blue for loyalty.

The Burnet flag

The first official flag of the Republic of Texas, approved on December 10, 1836, under President David G. Burnet, was a gold star centered on a blue field. It served as the national flag until 1839. That flag was the first official use of the single star that gave Texas its nickname; earlier uses, such as on the 1819 Long Expedition flag, are uncertain.

The Lone Star Flag

Senator William H. Wharton introduced a new flag in the Republic’s Senate on December 28, 1838. It passed on January 21, and President Mirabeau B. Lamar approved it on January 25, 1839. The designer is unknown; Peter Krag drew the official artwork. The Lone Star Flag replaced the Burnet flag as the national flag of the Republic and became the state flag when Texas joined the Union.

Fifty-four years without a legal flag

In 1879 the Legislature adopted the Revised Civil Statutes without continuing the 1839 flag law, so from September 1, 1879, Texas technically had no legally defined flag. It was not until 1933 that the Legislature re-adopted the Lone Star Flag, with detailed specifications, rules for display, a pledge and a Texas Flag Day on March 2. In 2001 the flag law was recodified in the Government Code, which defines the state flag as the 1839 national flag of the Republic and sets out its exact geometry and colors.

The Texas pledge

The 1933 law created a pledge to the Texas flag. In 1965 its mistaken reference to the “Texas Flag of 1836,” the Burnet flag, was removed, and in 2007 the words “one state under God” were added. It now reads: “Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.”

Rules for the flag

State law says the flag should fly with the white stripe on top, except that flying it inverted is a signal of dire distress, and that worn-out flags should be retired with dignity, preferably by burning.