New Minnesota state flag unfurls at capitol

ST. PAUL — The sun had not yet risen on the morning of Saturday, May 11, when the old Minnesota state flag was brought down the flagpole.

When the light finally did hit the state capitol in St. Paul, it lit up a brand new one, officially marking it as the official flag of the Northstar State.

“I wouldn’t have missed this,” Minnesota Historical Society Director and CEO Kent Whitworth said. “I wouldn’t have been anywhere else on the planet but right here on this day.”

Starting at 4:45 a.m. on May 11, Statehood Day for Minnesota, officials at the capitol began the process of removing the old state flag and symbolically raising the new one at sunrise, approximately 5:48 a.m.

At both the state capitol and the Veteran’s Service Building across the state capitol mall, the flags were lowered, retired and replaced by the new design.

Two Minnesota National Guardsmen folded the old flags and handed them off to the Minnesota Historical Society, who will add them to the “thousands of flags and banners” already in their collections.

“I think for all of us at the Minnesota Historical Society this morning, we’re focused on our role of preserving Minnesota’s history and culture,” Whitworth said.

“It’s an opportunity for us to showcase the preservation work that we do so that generations from now, Minnesotans will have the material culture, the three-dimensional items that bring these stories to life.”

Whitworth also wanted to “ensure folks that history will be preserved for generations in perpetuity.”

He hoped that the new flag would be a “unifying symbol for all Minnesotans.”

The process to redesign the state flag started in 2023, when state legislation created the State Emblems Redesign Commission for the purpose of developing a new design for the official state seal and official state flag. The previous flag was adopted in 1957, and revised in 1983.

The commission called for submissions from citizens, which were then chosen from, modified and eventually put forth to the commission for adoption.

After narrowing the search down to three selections on Dec. 12, 2023, a modified version of submission F1953 was selected on Dec. 19 and, with the raising on May 11, it has officially become the state flag of Minnesota.