State Flag

The flag is a red field with a blue bar at the fly, set off by a white stripe, and a blue circle holding three white stars. The legislature adopted it on April 17, 1905. Reeves wanted a distinctive emblem Tennesseans could carry to events outside the state, and said the blue bar relieves the sameness of the crimson field. One vexillologist, Steven Knowlton, has argued that its white stars on blue echo Confederate imagery in the Lost Cause climate of 1905, though no evidence shows Reeves meant that and no legislative debate survives.

What the plaque says

State Flag In 1905 the Legislature adopted as the state flag one which was designed by Colonel Le Roy Reeves, a native and resident of Johnson City. The three stars represent the three grand divisions of Tennessee. The flag was first raised by Company F of the National Guard on October 10, 1911 during the dedication ceremonies of East Tennessee State Normal School.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — 6.1 mi
  A shoal on the Watauga River where the Transylvania Company bought about 20 million acres from the Cherokee in March 1775, Dragging Canoe refused, and the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780.
• Rocky Mount Museum — 6.4 mi
  William Cobb's log house at Piney Flats, where Governor William Blount ran the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792, now a living-history museum set in 1791 with a reconstructed cabin for the enslaved.
• Jonesborough Historic District — 6.5 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 10 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.

More markers nearby

• Colored Christian Church and Colored School — steps away
• East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (ET & WNC) Depot — steps away
• Dr. Hezekiah B. Hankal — steps away
• Johnson City Incorporated December 1, 1869 — 0.2 mi