102 Years Ago: Wyoming State Flag Design is Chosen
In 1893, the Wyoming State Seal was adopted. That same year, a girl was born in Buffalo, Wyoming named Verna Keays. Verna would go on to create the iconic buffalo-on-blue flag that Wyoming still flies to this day.
In 1917, the Wyoming chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR,) put out a call for entries into a competition that would fid a design for the state flag of Wyoming, which had been a state for only 27 years at that point. The winner of the competition would get their design proposed to the Wyoming State Legislature, and win a sum of $20 (Worth approximately $389.58 today.)
Verna Keays was a recent graduate of the Chicago Institute of Art, and had just come home to Buffalo when she heard of the competition. Her design was chosen out of 37 other entries, and on January 31, 1917, Wyoming Governor Robert D. Carey signed the state flag bill into law, and the flag was adopted.
The flag was given a few alterations before officially adopted, however. Keays originally designed it with the buffalo facing away from the flagpole, to symbolize freedom. The orientation of the flag was flipped, with the buffalo facing the pole, to symbolize strength through the wind.