Flag of Colorado
official flag of the U.S. state of Colorado

The flag of the U.S. state of Colorado was officially adopted on June 5, 1911. The flag, designed by Andrew Carlisle Carson, consists of a fess design of three horizontal stripes of equal width, with the top and bottom stripes colored blue, and the middle stripe colored white. A circular red "C", filled with a golden disk, sits atop the stripes. All aspects of the flag contain symbolism related to the state, as the blue is meant to represent the sky, the gold the abundant sunshine the state receives, the white the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, and the red the "ruddy" earth. The gold and white portions of the flag also represent the state's gold and silver mining industries, respectively.
The state had one previous official flag before the current one, from 1907 to 1911. The Denver chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, unaware that this flag existed, wanted to create a flag for the state and settled on a red and white colored one, designed with the help of then-state senator William H. Sharpley. This flag was presented to the legislature but, because it was less popular than Carson's design, it was replaced. The new design passed the Senate and House of Representatives on April 25 and May 6, 1911, respectively. The flag made its public debut at a parade on May 30, 1911, and was officially adopted on June 5, 1911.
“Flag of Colorado” enters the record as official flag of the U.S. state of Colorado. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Flag, Colorado and official can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Flag of Colorado” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Flag, Colorado and official provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q492546. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1911 and 1907.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Flag of Colorado”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Flag of Colorado primary sources, Flag of Colorado archive and Flag research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Flag of Colorado”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Flag of Colorado” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.