1837 - 1841

Texas Lone Star Flag
(1837 to 1841)

“Jane Long and most permanent residents struggled against great odds establishing homes, ranches, and plantations on Texas’s costal plain.

“Early in second president Lamar’s administration the Lone Star Flag that survives today was adopted: a lone white star on a blue field beside two stripes, white above red.” – page 125, Texas Sinners and Revolutionaries, Jane Long and Her Fellow Conspirators by Jack C. Ramsay, Jr.

 

© - Copyright, Jack C. Ramsay, Jr. 2001

Texas is called “The Lone Star State” because of The “Lone Star” design
Of the second official “Lone Star” Flag of the Republic of Texas,
Introduced December 28, 1838 and Approved January 25, 1839

Although Jane probably had little to do with the final design of the Lone Star Flag, her original flag certainly influenced the emblem that remains to this day as the banner of Texas. A hand drawn design can still be seen among the papers of Mirabeau Lamar. Both he and his vice-president, Burnet, signed the document shortly before they moved the capital to the city of Austin. The wide use of a five pointed star was almost certainly because such a design could be cut with a single snip of a properly folded piece of material.

Several designs were proposed and on January 25, 1839 “The Lone Star Flag”, adopted by an act of the Texas Congress, was approved as the official flag of the Republic of Texas. This flag, according to House Resolution 1123 passed in 1997, “may” have been designed by Dr. Charles B. Stewart, the second to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence. The “Lone Star Flag” was adopted during the presidency of Lamar and, except for the period 1897-1933, has been the official state flag.

 During the years 1879 to 1933 there was no official Texas flag. The 1839 flag law had been repealed because of a statement in the “Revised Civil Statues of 1879” when the Sixteenth Legislature approved the statue with wording which said, “all civil statues of general nature ….. are hereby repealed”. Since the revised statues included no legislation concerning the flag and did not “expressly” continue in force in the 1839 law, the 1839 flag law was repealed, thereby resulted in no “official state flag”.