SALT LAKE CITY — Several lawmakers helped raise a corrected Utah flag outside the state Capitol on Wednesday as a nod to a new commemoration day.
Every March 9 will now be known as Utah State Flag Day according to a bill the Legislature has approved. HB490 nows goes the governor for his signature.
Earlier in the session, lawmakers approved a resolution fixing a longstanding error on the state flag.
The official flag adopted in 1911 has the year 1847 — when Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley — on the shield. A hand-stitched state flag commissioned in 1922 inadvertently placed the year under the shield and the error was perpetuated over the years.
Historian Ron Fox brought the error to the state's attention after finding a 1903 flag in a mislabeled box at the Utah State Historical Society. The Utah Legislature declared that version as the official flag in 1911.
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