The flag of Salt Lake City, representing

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, consists of two horizontal bars of blue and white with a

sego lily ''Calochortus nuttallii'', also known as the sego lily, is a bulbous perennial plant that is endemic to the Western United States. It is the state flower of Utah. Distribution and habitat The plant is native to a number of western states, bei ...

in the canton. It was adopted in 2020 after a city-wide contest to replace a previous flag.

Historical flags

1963 design

The first adopted city flag was designed in 1963 by J. Rulon Hales, the winner of a contest run by the ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is the oldest continuously operating publication in the American west. Its multi-platform products feature journalism and commentary across the fields of politics, culture, family life, faith, sports, and entertainment. Th ...

''. The first version of the flag was made by art students from Highland High School and officially adopted for use on November 13, 1969. It included

seagulls Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

, pioneers, a covered wagon, and the sun rising over the Wasatch Mountains in the middle of a white background. The center was in the general shape of a beehive, which is a symbol of industry and relates to the founding of Salt Lake City and its

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

heritage.

2006 design

The second design of the flag was approved on October 4, 2006, by the Salt Lake City Council. Rocky Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City at the time, had sponsored a contest in 2004 to redesign the flag. Anderson argued that the "old flag was too exclusive and focused entirely on the city's Mormon heritage." The contest, which received more than 50 entries, did not produce any designs that the city council felt had the "symbolic visuals that could be associated with Salt Lake City". They then formed a subcommittee to work with the mayor's office to create new designs for the flag. The final design was approved with a 4–2 margin.

2020 design

In May 2020, the city government opened a two-month contest to redesign the flag with a $3,000 prize for the winning entry. The city received over 600 design entries, of which eight finalists were selected in July by the Flag Design Review Committee for public review. The winning design, announced in September 2020, was created through the merger of two finalists created by Arianna Meinking and Elio Kennedy-Yoon from West High School. The design features a

, the Utah state flower, in the canton amidst horizontal fields of blue and white. It was sent to the city council for consideration with the endorsement of mayor

Erin Mendenhall Erin Mendenhall (born June 8, 1980) is an American politician who has been serving as the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah since 2020. Upon taking office as Salt Lake City’s 36th mayor, Mendenhall became the city’s third and youngest woman in th ...

and adopted on October 6, 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salt Lake City, Flag of

Flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

Flags of cities in Utah Flags introduced in 2006 Flags introduced in 2020 Flags adopted through competition 2006 establishments in Utah 2020 establishments in Utah Christianity and politics in the United States Mormonism and politics Mormonism-related controversies