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Sumter, South Carolina (U.S.)

Sumter County

image by Masao Okazaki, 28 December 2024
based on photo located by Peter Thewis, 27 December 2024

Description of the flag
Seal

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Description of the flag

The city of Sumter, in Sumter County, South Carolina, has a flag.
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jelatin828/2380210764

City's first flag unfurled for council
April 17, 1991
By Amanda Sturgill
The Item
https://www.newspapers.com/image/668909288/?match=1&clipping_id=161731639
https://www.newspapers.com/image/668909300/?clipping_id=161732979

A gamecock, a swan, the Opera house and an iris were chosen as the symbols of Sumter for the city's first official flag, unfurled Tuesday night. Six months ago, Sumter City Council members asked Mayor Steve Creech to look into getting a city flag. creech formed a committee and after months of deliberation, the final creation was unveiled at Tuesday's council meeting. "We asked ourselves what symbol or symbols would stand for Sumter," committee member Libby Aiken told council. Other committee members were Brandon McQuage, Danny Shelley and Colleen Yates. The committee considered about 14 designs before deciding what the flag should look like.

The flag is purple with a gold circle, a white swan, a black silhouette of the Opera House in the background and a green and purple iris and a gamecock weather vane on the building.

Getting all the images in one design was the problem, Aiken said. "Every time we met there was something missing," she said. "We couldn't think how to get a gamecock in with the swan." Committee member Portia Myers located a gamecock design from the 1800s and told the committee that she believed it was the first gamecock image associated with the city, Aiken said. The committee used a computer to scan an exact image of the old woodcutting to turn it into the weathervane on the flag, thus incorporating all the symbols. Aiken said that since this flag was a first for the city, "we wanted something that would not be dated as of this year, but that would be timeless."

The flag took it's place in Sumter right away. City Manager Talmadge Tobias said the flag will fly over the Opera House and Swan Lake Iris Gardens beginning this morning.
David Sigley, 28 December 2024

Seal

image located by Paul Bassinson, 25 November 2019

Source: http://www.scencyclopedia.org
Paul Bassinson, 4 March 2019