Year Adopted: 1911

Flag Colors: Blue, white, red, yellow

The territory known as Colorado came under US jurisdiction beginning in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, and followed with the Texas Annexation of 1845, and the Mexican Cession of 1848. It was organized as a territory in 1861 out of portions of the Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Utah territories. Colorado was admitted to the Union as a State in 1876.

The flag was originally designed by Andrew Carlisle Johnson. Precise colors of red and blue were not designated in the 1911 legislation and some controversy arose over these colors. On February 28, 1929, the General Assembly stipulated the precise colors of red and blue, the same as the national flag. Controversy also arose over the size of the letter C and on March 31, 1964, the General Assembly further modified the 1911 legislation by revising the distance from the staff for the letter C and its diameter.

The state flag was adopted on June 5, 1911, by an act of the General Assembly. The flag consists of three alternate stripes of equal width and at right angles to the staff, the two outer stripes to be blue of the same color as in the blue field of the national flag and the middle stripe to be white, the proportion of the flag being a width of two thirds of its length. At a distance from the staff end of the flag of one fifth of the total length of the flag there is a circular red C, of the same color as the red in the national flag of the United States. The diameter of the letter is two thirds of the width of the flag. The inner line of the opening of the letter C is three fourths of the width of its body or bar, and the outer line of the opening is double the length of the inner line thereof. Completely filling the open space inside the letter C is a golden disk. Citations: Senate Bill 118, 1911; Senate Bill 152, 1929; Senate Bill, 1964. (ref. Colorado State Archives) January 2014