Celebrating "Chicago Flag Day" on April 4th.

CHICAGO INCORPORATION DATA

James Thompson surveyed Chicago, filing the plat on August 4, 1830. This action was the official recognition of Chicago's location. 

Chicago was incorporated as a town on August 12, 1833, with a population of about 350. 

With a population of 4,170, the town of Chicago filed new Incorporation documents on March 4, 1837, becoming the City of Chicago and the world's fastest-growing city for several decades.

CHICAGO FLAG DESIGN EXPLAINED

In 1915, Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., decided that the time had come for Chicago to join the dozens of other American municipalities that had adopted an official flag. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition had come and gone with only a red banner emblazoned with a white pall (Y-shape) to advertise the city's "municipal colors" (the Y-shape would also be employed in the city's less recognizable "Municipal Device").

Harrison's flag commission received more than 1,000 proposals before settling on a design submitted by Wallace Rice, a lecturer in heraldry and flag history at the Art Institute of Chicago. Rice's original design only incorporated two stars, symbolizing the 1871 Chicago Fire and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Rice chose six-pointed stars to distinguish them from the five-pointed stars commonly seen on national flags; the points formed a 30-degree internal angle to mark them as distinct from the Star of David. He aligned them to the staff (left) side rather than centering them, assuming city officials might wish to add more stars later. 

The city did that in the 1930s, adding two more stars (symbolizing the 1933/34 Century of Progress Exposition and Fort Dearborn). There have been numerous campaigns to add a fifth star to honor everything from Chicago's role in creating the atomic bomb (Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois) to Chicago's history with the Special Olympics. 

The current form has remained unchanged since 1939.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.