Utah's first state flag finally found

Utah had a problem in 1903.

The St. Louis World's Fair had invited the state to participate in a parade of states. The parade was only few months away, and Utah was unprepared: It had no state flag.

Utah's first governor, Heber M. Wells, needed a flag fast, so he asked for help from Julia P.M. Farnsworth, regent of the Utah State Society of the Daughters of the Revolution.

The Daughters of the Revolution — a who's who of turn-of-the-19th-century Utah women — raised money by $1 donations and contracted with the ZCMI art department to make the flag. Agnes Teudt Fernelius, an immigrant from Goteborg, Sweden, embroidered the state seal with white thread on blue homespun Utah silk.

On May 1, 1903, in St. Louis, the delegation from the Union's youngest state marched proudly with the flag in the parade of states. The delegation, which included President Joseph F. Smith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sen. Reed Smoot, Gov. Wells and others, had met earlier where the World's Fair, officially known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, would take place the next year. A photograph was taken of the delegation standing around the flag where the Utah pavilion would be built.

More than a century later, in 2008, Ronald Fox found the photograph of the flag. Fox is a history buff and an indefatigable artifact hunter. Like a pit bull, he latched onto the idea of finding the flag.

The Utah State History department didn't have a record of the flag. Fox looked everywhere: The Daughters of Utah Pioneers, the LDS Church's collections, Fort Douglas Museum and the museum at the former state Capitol in Fillmore.

As Fox researched, he learned that it wasn't until March 9, 1911 — 99 years ago Tuesday — that the 1903 flag was declared by the Legislature as the official state flag of Utah.

Fox met flag expert John Hartvigsen in December 2009. Hartvigsen remembered seeing a beautifully embroidered 1922 Utah flag in the Utah State Historical Society Museum's collection. Fox knew that the 1922 flag wasn't listed in the museum's index of cataloged items. "That led me to believe that (the 1903) flag was there," Fox said.

Fox decided to go back to the beginning of his search and called Philip F. Notarianni, Utah State history director. Notarianni agreed to make a thorough search.

A few days later, in early February, Fox received a call from Michele Elnicky, a curator at the museum. Her team had found the flag. It had been inside a box that had been placed inside another box long before their cataloging system had been implemented.