History of the Washington State Flag: The Story Behind the Only Green State Flag in America

Walk through any gathering of state flags and the Washington state flag stands out immediately — not because of its size or because it's particularly bold in design, but because it is simply unlike anything else. Every other state flag is red, white, blue, yellow, or some combination of those colors. Washington's is green. Deep, dark, Irish green. And in the center, looking out from a circle of gold lettering, is the face of a man — the first president of the United States, and the man the state was named after.

No other state has done this. Washington is the only U.S. state with a green flag, and the only one to carry the likeness of a president. That combination makes it among the most distinctive state flags in the country. The story behind it runs from a jeweler's improvised sketch in Olympia, to a group of determined women with a banner and a political mission, to a unanimous Senate vote in 1923.

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The Name: How Washington Came to Honor a President

Before there could be a state — and before there could be a flag — there had to be a territory. Washington Territory came into existence on March 2, 1853, when President Millard Fillmore signed the act that carved it from the northern portion of Oregon Territory. It very nearly wasn't called Washington at all.

The original proposal called it the Territory of Columbia. Representative Richard H. Stanton of Kentucky objected: the name Columbia would too easily be confused with the District of Columbia, the nation's capital. Stanton proposed renaming it Washington, in honor of the first president. Some argued that while there were no states named Washington, there were already many counties, cities, and towns with the name — and it would cause its own confusion. The objection failed. The bill passed with the name Washington, and on March 2, 1853, the Evergreen State had its territorial identity.

The naming is important to understanding the flag that would eventually follow. From the moment Washington Territory was established, it was bound to the person of George Washington in a way no other territory or state was. That connection would shape every visual symbol the state adopted — including, 70 years later, the flag.

Statehood Without a Flag: November 11, 1889

Washington became the 42nd state on November 11, 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison issued the proclamation of admission. The news was telegraphed to Olympia immediately, where celebrations began. It had taken 36 years from territorial status to statehood — longer than any of the 41 states admitted before it.

Statehood in hand, Washington had a new constitution, a first governor (Elisha P. Ferry), and a state seal that had been adopted at the constitutional convention that August. What it did not have was an official state flag.

This was not unusual. Several states at the time had gone years — sometimes decades — without an official flag. In Washington's early years of statehood, military units and cities flying colors typically used a blue bunting flag with a gold profile of George Washington, the state's namesake. It was informal and inconsistent, not codified by any law. Some communities displayed the state seal on purple or green backgrounds. There was no standard, and for more than three decades, Washington was content to leave it that way.

The Seal: An Ink Bottle, a Silver Dollar, and a Postage Stamp

The origin story of Washington's state seal — and by extension its flag — involves one of the more charmingly improvised moments in American civic design. In 1889, with statehood approaching, a committee assembled in Olympia to design a great seal for the new state. They brought their proposed design to Charles Talcott, a local jeweler, and asked him to engrave a die for stamping official documents.

Talcott looked at what they had brought him. The committee's proposed design was elaborate and crowded — depicting the port of Tacoma, vast wheat fields, sheep grazing in a valley, all set against the backdrop of Mount Rainier. Talcott told the committee directly that such a detailed, pictorial design would become outdated. He had a simpler idea.

The seal's central portrait of George Washington carries a blue background and is encircled by a gold ring with the words The Seal of the State of Washington and the year 1889. In its original form, the image was based on the postage stamp portrait. It would remain that way for nearly 80 years.

Thirty-Four Flagless Years: The Unofficial Designs (1889–1923)

Washington spent the first 34 years of statehood without an official flag. In that time, several unofficial designs circulated and competed for recognition.

The most widely used was the military flag — a gold profile of George Washington on blue bunting — which was first carried by the Washington Volunteer Infantry during the Philippine-American War in 1899. Military units going overseas needed something to identify them, and this blue-and-gold design became the de facto Washington flag in that context. It was practical, it referenced the state's namesake, and it served well enough in the absence of anything official.

Back home, many cities and towns flew their own variations. A popular civilian design placed the state seal against purple or green backing. Neither had legal authority, and neither was consistent in size, shade, or proportion. Washington was, in the words of the Seattle Times, one of just four states still lacking an official state flag as late as 1923.

The first serious legislative push came in 1913, when Representative William J. Hughes of Whatcom County proposed forming a commission — consisting of the governor, secretary of state, and adjutant general — to settle on a design. Governor Ernest Lister backed the idea and issued a call for designs from citizens and civic organizations. The effort stalled. Patriotic groups including the Sons of the American Revolution and the Sons of Veterans actively opposed adopting a state flag, arguing it would diminish the importance of the national flag. The debate went nowhere.

The Women Who Built the Flag: The DAR's Campaign (1915–1923)

While the legislature debated and delayed, the Washington chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution decided to act on their own. In 1915, a DAR committee led by Mrs. Stephen J. Chadwick designed a flag: the state seal centered on a field of green — a color chosen to represent the Evergreen State's forests. The committee had a three-by-five-foot banner made in Washington D.C. and displayed it at the DAR's Memorial Continental Hall.

The following year, the Washington state Elks fraternal organization borrowed the banner for a major event in Everett, Washington. That was the flag's first appearance on its home soil — not in a legislative chamber, but at a civic gathering. From there it traveled, gained supporters, and gathered momentum.

A 1917 issue of National Geographic Magazine featured an unofficial map of U.S. state flags. Washington's entry in that survey closely resembled the DAR's design: a green background with the state seal in gold — apparently sourced from military authorities. It was unofficial, but it was national exposure.

In 1920, another design entered the picture from a different source: the short-lived Washington State Nautical School, whose secretary-treasurer Grover C. Gaier designed his own green flag with the state seal and gold fringe. That flag flew aboard the USS Vicksburg during a voyage along the West Coast and to Hawaii, representing the school. It was a competitor, but not a serious one for long.

By 1922, the Washington DAR renewed its campaign in earnest. They had been patient — seven years since the 1915 design — and now they had allies. The Sons of the American Revolution, which had previously opposed any state flag, reversed its position and backed the DAR's design. Other civic organizations followed. The opposition that had killed the 1913 effort had been converted into support.

The Road to Adoption: A Timeline

What the Flag's Design Actually Means

The Washington state flag carries deliberate symbolism in every element, much of it explained on the record by the legislators who put it into law.

The Portrait on the Flag Today: Gilbert Stuart and Richard Nelms

The portrait of George Washington that appears on today's flag is not the original one. From 1923 to 1967, the flag carried the Talcott brothers' seal — still based ultimately on a postage stamp, and in a form that had diverged across dozens of unofficial variations over 78 years. By the mid-1960s, more than two dozen different versions of the Talcott seal had been in use across the state. It was time for a single, authoritative standard.

In 1967, the Secretary of State commissioned Seattle graphic designer Richard Nelms to create a new official seal. Nelms chose to base the portrait of George Washington on Gilbert Stuart's famous series of paintings — the same tradition that produced the image on the U.S. dollar bill. Stuart had painted Washington from life in 1796, and the resulting portrait had become the canonical image of the first president. Nelms' version, adapted for the seal, was approved by the legislature in April 1967, taking effect immediately.

One More Distinction: The State Named to Avoid Confusion

There is a certain irony embedded in Washington's entire flag history. The territory was named Washington specifically to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia — Representative Stanton's argument in 1853 was that "Columbia" was already taken. The result was a state named after the first president instead, which in turn produced a state seal featuring that president's face, which in turn produced a flag that puts that face on a green banner and flies it above every courthouse, school, and capitol building in the state.

The Washington state flag is, in other words, a direct consequence of a naming argument on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1853. A different vote on that amendment, and Washington might have become Columbia Territory — with a completely different seal, different symbolism, and almost certainly a different flag. The Evergreen State's distinctive banner traces back to a congressman's objection to a name.

Washington State Flag History — Frequently Asked Questions

Jordan Fischer

Jordan Fischer is an e-commerce specialist at Tidmore Flags with hands-on experience across the full range of American-made flag products, materials, and display standards. He writes expert-reviewed guides on flag history, sizing, and material selection, drawing on primary sources including the Washington Secretary of State, HistoryLink.org, and Britannica.