Flag Day in Texas

The painting above is titled "The Annexation of Texas to the Union,” Donald M. Yena, Texas State Library and Archives Commission

Publisher's Note: If you were a Customs and Border Protection agent at an immigration checkpoint and you asked me if I was a US citizen, I'd have to bite my tongue and just say yes instead of saying what I really want to say — "No, sir. I'm a TEXAN." A beer company put out an ad campaign called "Real Men of Genius," and one of their ads was about a guy they called "Mr. Way Too Proud of Texas." That's me. I am proud to be an American, but I'm way prouder of being a Texan. The Texas Historical Commission's social media page wrote up a post on the bittersweet day when the Lone Star Flag came down in front of the Republic of Texas' capitol and Old Glory went up. To celebrate Flag Day, I reprint their post below. The Texas Historical Commission writes:

Flag Day, June 14, commemorates the flag of the United States of America.

After the Republic of Texas, an independent nation, was annexed into the U.S. in late 1845, a ceremony was held in Austin in front of the capitol building—an early structure that no longer stands. Anson Jones, president of the Republic, formally transferred power to J. Pinckney Henderson, governor of the new state. The ceremony included lowering the Republic’s flag and raising the U.S. flag in its place.

In his memoirs, blacksmith Noah Smithwick described the scene he witnessed that day:

“Many a head was bowed, many a broad chest heaved, and many a manly cheek was wet with tears when that broad field of blue in the center of which, like a signal light, glowed the lone star, emblem of the sovereignty of Texas, was furled and laid away among the relics of the dead republic.”

But the event was not somber only; Smithwick goes on to say: 

“We were most of us natives of the United States, and when the stars and stripes, the flag of our fathers, was run up and catching the breeze unrolled its heaven born colors to the light, cheer after cheer rent the air.”

Both Jones and Smithwick have connections to THC state historic sites. Visitors can learn more about life during the Republic era at Jones’ home, Barrington Plantation State Historic Site. At San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site, explore the early Texan colony where Smithwick lived and then was banished from.

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