Flag of Nebraska

How to read it

Section 90-102 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes says the banner of the State of Nebraska is a reproduction of the Great Seal, charged on the centre in gold and silver on a field of national blue, and that the banner is the official state flag. It may be flown on the same occasions as the flag of the United States, and must be displayed on or near the State Capitol, the Governor’s Mansion, courthouses, city and village halls, schoolhouses and other public buildings, under or to the left of the US flag. The law gives no proportions. The banner was adopted in 1925: House Roll 62 was signed by the President of the House on 28 March 1925, and Governor Adam McMullen approved it on 2 April, WOWT reported. Legislative Bill 556, passed on 10 April 1963 and signed on 23 April, made it the official state flag. The Secretary of State notes that the law forbids using any part of the flag in an advertisement or trademark, and that the original flag is displayed in the Secretary of State’s office.

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The seal piece by piece

The act of 15 June 1867, quoted under § 84-501, sets out the seal’s parts. On the east of the circle a steamboat goes up the Missouri River. The mechanic arts are a smith with hammer and anvil. In the foreground, agriculture is a settler’s cabin, sheaves of wheat and stalks of growing corn. In the background a train heads for the Rocky Mountains, which are plainly in view on the far west. Around the top in capitals is the motto EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW, the state motto, and around the circle the words “Great Seal of the State of Nebraska, March 1st, 1867”.

Telling it from Kansas’s flag

Both are a state seal on blue. Kansas’s flag adds a sunflower on a twisted bar above the seal and KANSAS in gold beneath it. Nebraska’s has the seal alone; the state’s name appears only in the ring of words around the seal.