Flag Day Celebration

Flag Day June 14, 2008 Officials in Grapevine will hold the City's annual Flag Day Celebration on Saturday, June 14 at 11 a.m. The event will take place at Grapevine's Gazebo, located in the 300 block of Main Street in Historic Downtown Grapevine.

The event is open to the media and the general public, with cookies and lemonade to be served upon conclusion of the program.

History

The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America's birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. B.J. Cigrand, a school teacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as 'Flag Birthday'.

In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrarid continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as 'Flag Birthday, or 'Flag Day. ' On June 14, 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned appropriate ceremonies for the children of his school, and his idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York, On June 14, 1891, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia held a Flag Day celebration, and on June 14 of the following year, the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution, celebrated Flag Day.

Following the suggestion of Colonel J. Granville Leach (at the time, historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution), the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America on April 25, 1893, adopted a resolution requesting the mayor of Philadelphia and all others in authority and all private citizens to display the Flag on June 14th. Leach went on to recommend that thereafter the day be known as 'Flag Day, and on that day, school children be assembled for appropriate exercises, with each child being given a small Flag.

In 1894, the governor of New York directed that on June 14 the Flag be displayed on all public buildings. With 83. Cigrand and Leroy Van Horn as the moving spirits, the Illinois organization, known as the American Flag Day Association, was organized for the purpose of promoting the holding of Flag Day exercises. Inspired by these three decades of state and local celebrations, Flag Day - the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 - was officially established by the Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson on May 30th, 1916. While Flag Day was celebrated in various communities for years after Wilson's proclamation, it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.