The Louisville Flag

Louisville's flags have told two stories. The city's thirteen stars honored the original colonies, and its three fleurs-de-lis honored Louis XVI, the city's namesake, for France's help in the Revolution. Jefferson County flew Thomas Jefferson and the year 1780. Since the 2003 merger, the metro government has flown its seal on blue. None of them said anything about Kentucky; in 1778, Louisville was still part of Virginia.

This flag keeps the old stories and adds the missing one.

At the hoist flies a single white star: the heart of the Commonwealth Star, the star at the center of a Kentucky flag. Where the old flag had thirteen stars, this one has one, gathered together.

Across the lower corner of the fly, three goldenrod bars carry forward the three fleurs-de-lis, so the French thread survives. Goldenrod is Kentucky's state flower, and the bars rise toward the open edge of the flag.

The field is Old Glory Blue, the blue of the national flag, keeping the old flag's tie to the nation.

Nation, France, and now Kentucky