Most people couldn’t pick their city’s flag out of a lineup. In Chicago, it’s on bar signs, bottle openers, hats, bike racks and a respectable number of forearms. It might be the only municipal flag people get tattooed on purpose.
You’ve seen it a thousand times. Here’s what it’s actually saying.
The stripes
The three white stripes are the North, West and South Sides. The two blue stripes are water: the top one for Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the river, the bottom one for the South Branch and the canal. Put together, it’s a map of the city, drawn by someone who didn’t think the suburbs needed a stripe.
The stars, left to right
Fort Dearborn. The military outpost the city grew up around. Added in 1939, but placed first because it came first.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. One of the two original stars.
The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The other original star, for the world’s fair that put the city on the map.
A Century of Progress, 1933. The second world’s fair, added the year it opened.
Where it came from
The flag was designed by Wallace Rice and adopted in 1917 with two stars. The third and fourth were added in the 1930s, and the design hasn’t changed since.
The fifth star argument
Every few years somebody proposes a fifth star, for a championship, a historic moment or a cause, and every few years the city argues about it and nothing happens. The six-pointed stars haven’t moved in more than eighty years, and a lot of people like it that way.
One small request
If you’re buying something with the flag on it, and you probably will, buy it from someone who lives here. There are print shops, screen printers and makers all over the city doing this better than a warehouse ever will.
Like a place in this story? Go see them in person. One less Amazon order a week.
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