Carbon commissioners approve design for flag to fly at courthouse, across county

By Sun Advocate

In the 108- year history of Carbon County, no official flag has ever been created.
The lack of a flag may not seem like much of an issue until a local resident goes to a state function and realizes that almost every other county in Utah has a one.
“When we were at the state fair, there were all these flags from counties that looked great,” said Patti Pierce. “Someone had taken a white sheet and pasted a insignia from one of the county vehicles on it for Carbon County’s display.”
In fact, Pierce and Rhonda Petersen discovered that Carbon County was the only area in the state that did not have a flag.
As of last Wednesday, however, the situation no longer exists. On Sept. 25, the Carbon County Commission approved a flag design proposed by a small committee of people.
The members of the group had been working on developing the design for a county flag for the several months.
“I talked to a lot of people about this when we first discovered there was no flag,” commented Pierce. “We even spoke to some people in their 90s and they couldn’t remember there ever being any kind of flag for the county.”
The members of the group looked at a number of ideas and subsequent designs.
The committee reviewed the logos for the many cities and towns in the county.
The members of the group looked at the logos that had to do with the different industries and historical sites in the county and at backgrounds for a design as well.
“One day, I was over at the county clerk’s office and I was shown a drawing by Randy Russell,” pointed out Pierce. “He had drawn it as part of the development for a letterhead for economic development, but I thought it would make a great background for the flag.”
Eventually, Chris Langstein from Cottage Signs combined the group’s ideas with logos and the backgrounds, then came up with the final design for the county’s flag.
But now that the design for a county flag has been officially approved by the commissioners, what will happen?
“The first thing we are going to do is make up a banner with it on to hang in the county courthouse,” explained Pierce. “Then we are going to look for a flag company to make the actual flag. There are about four of them the county deals with now.”
Once a company is selected to produce the final version of the approved design, Pierce and Petersen indicated it will take about eight weeks to actually produce a flag that can be flown in front of the courthouse and at other sites at locations throughout Carbon County.