Flags That Have Flown Over Georgia: The History of the Georgia State Flag

Georgia State Flag, c. 1920-1956

By the late 1910s or early 1920s, a new, unofficial version of Georgia's state flag- one incorporating the entire state seal- began appearing. There is no record of who ordered the change or when it took place.

The new flag may have resulted from a 1914 law changing the date on Georgia's state seal from 1799 (the date the seal was adopted) to 1776 (the year of independence). Because some flag makers had been including "1799" beneath the coat of arms, it became necessary to change the date on new flags. At that point, possibly the Secretary of State or a flag manufacturer may have decided that the entire state seal created a more uniform flag.

The first state publication to show Georgia's flag with a seal was the Georgia Official Register for 1927, which contained the artist's color rendering shown above. In reality, until the mid-1950s (when a new seal was drawn), various versions of the Georgia seal were used on state flags.