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Maricopa County, Arizona (U.S.)

image by Jens Pattke, 13 April 2005

Description of the flag

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Description of the flag

The Maricopa County flag was created in 1954 by William D. Gunn, who was part of a local American Legion precision drill color guard that entered a national competition held in Miami, Florida. To qualify he needed national, state, county and post flags, but discovered the County did not have a flag. After researching state legislative requirements, Gunn, guard commander from William Bloys Post No. 2 in Tempe, contacted the board of supervisors and got their approval to hold a county flag contest. On November 9, 1954, a panel of judges, including Board Chairman James Hart and County Manager Tom Sullivan, reviewed 97 entries and selected the winning design, submitted by Michael J. Groves from Phoenix Technical High School. The design, adopted by the supervisors a week later, featured the words “Maricopa County” in red and “Arizona” in purple, encircled by 14 gold stars on an inner field of white, with a purple outer field. The official flag was commissioned from the lowest bidder at the cost of $270 for two six-foot flags.

The county is currently in the process of updating the county flag for the second time. Soon a newly designed county flag will be flying. Today the original Maricopa County flag, along with its historical documents, are housed in the Clerk of the Board archives.

The Maricopa County Flag History is described in the People’s Court Chronicle, Volume 2/Issue 2

submitted by Dov Gutterman, 15 December 2002

Evidently there was indeed a new design adopted; the county website has a thumbnail of it at http://www.maricopa.gov/dist1/community.asp. Photos with partial views of it can be seen at http://www.maricopa.gov/pio/swearing_in/pages/Dsc00963.htm, http://www.maricopa.gov/pio/swearing_in/pages/Dsc00965.htm, and http://www.maricopa.gov/pio/swearing_in/pages/Dsc00966.htm. While details on the seal are not clear, at least we now have a general idea of the new design. A much clearer image of the seal is at http://www.maricopa.gov/mission/images/MAR-Seal-RGB_samp.gif.
Ned Smith, 13 April 2005