When I call Lisa Coltman to interview her about her 131-year-old American flag, she asks me if I want to see it in person. She’s in the Salt Lake Valley between errands — what’s my address?
Twenty-five minutes later, she’s in my dining room unlatching a white carrying case. Here it is: a folded 13-by-9-foot authentic 45-star American flag made in the 1890s, sitting on my dining room table that’s stained with a heat mark in the shape of a microwave breakfast burrito I ate last week.
I’m feeling not so qualified to be in the presence of such a historical object, but Coltman says it’s OK for me to touch it, so I do. It’s wool, a bit scratchy and thinner than I expected. You can see spots where it has frayed, but it feels sturdy and looks it, too.
I pause. Is this the oldest human artifact I’ve ever touched?
Coltman has seemingly moved past such apprehensions.
She’s excited to share the family heirloom, which comes not from her own family but from that of an old high school friend, Brett Kohler, whom she bumped into earlier this year in Los Angeles. He remembered Coltman and knew of her Park City Lighthouse project, Coltman’s name for her Park City home where she hosts and entertains people and artists from all over the world. Realizing how valuable it was, he gave the flag to Coltman a few months ago.
As we talk, I understand why she was so willing to bring the flag directly to me. Coltman is a self-described hummingbird, an eccentric and warm soul who is not interested in being a stranger to anyone. As soon as we meet, she and her companion, Ihor, who helps her carry the flag, each ask me for a hug.
She makes an aside during our conversation about her work in tactile linguistics and hands me a small bag, tells me to take a deep breath and draw from inside. I put my hand in and pull a heart-shaped rose quartz stone with the word “dream” engraved. Coltman and Ihor fish out their own, and we take a deep breath and touch our crystal hearts together.
It’s this genuine, albeit kooky, mentality that makes Coltman so fit to steward such a precious artifact, and I’m not surprised at all Kohler trusted her with it. She’s been in Texas the last month and now finally has the time to dedicate herself to the flag, so she and Ihor are taking it to whoever can help them capture the opportunity in front of them.
In fact, Coltman had spent the morning at ABC4 taping a segment with a vexillologist — a term for someone who studies flags — named DeVaughn Simper.
I caught up with Simper a day later while he was at the Colonial Heritage Festival in Orem, where re-enactors gather to teach people about life in the 18th century. Simper was portraying Francis Hopkinson, American Founding Father and designer of the American flag. Simper himself is a Taylorsville resident who has researched flags for two decades and owns over 1,700 of his own.
According to him, Coltman’s flag was probably made by ZCMI — Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution, the Brigham Young-founded department store chain — in December 1895 using wool sourced from Park City or the Heber City area, which was a major contributor of sheep and wool for the region. It’s approximately 110 by 168 inches, which, Simper said, was proper for the time.
“This would have been flown on Jan. 4, 1896, when Utah became a state, and would have been flying from 1896 all the way to 1912 when we added 46 stars,” Simper says. “It was also flying when the USS Utah battleship was commissioned in 1911.”
Exactly where it flew those years is uncertain. The flag had its time in different locations around Boston and across Massachusetts, at one point Pasadena, California, and, because one of Kohler’s family members worked there, was at one point even displayed at the White House. It eventually made its way home to Utah.
The flag’s 45th star is also slightly tilted, which would have been on purpose, Simper says.
“It was a common tradition,” he says. “We didn’t have an official description of what … the star arrangement was supposed to be until the flag code was passed until 1943, and so manufacturers took all sorts of creative license with that.”
Flags made in Utah at that time could have made the 45th star, representing Utah as the newest state, askew to symbolize that the state was unique. Or maybe not.
“We don’t know,” he says. “It just happened that way.”
Though it’s hard to say how much ZCMI charged for these flags. The company would have made many of them, Simper says. But how many are still around?
“There are only six of these that I’m aware of,” he says. “It is extremely rare.”
But it turns out this flag is one of two ZCMI flags to crop up this year. That flag, which is smaller and in worse condition, is currently at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum in Heber City. Simper says it required a lot more conservation work to be ready for display.
Meanwhile, Coltman’s is one and a half times bigger and better preserved, though it has sustained sun damage from being flown so long. The fabric is actually quite delicate, though it looks like there has already been some attempt to preserve it, Simper says — mesh and “fusible web” mended into the fabric — and going forward, he wouldn’t fly this outside. Definitely not.
Coltman has other plans, though.
Yes, she wants to find someone who can help her preserve and continue to repair the flag, but first she’s interested in the opportunity it provides. Though it could fetch up to $20,000 or even $30,000 in the right market with the right buyer, Simper says. Coltman isn’t thinking that way: She and friends will carry the flag in Park City’s Fourth of July parade Saturday and then hang it from 1-3 p.m. at LIK Fine Art, 592 Main Street, where anyone can RSVP to see it. The gallery may also photograph it and eventually make prints for purchase.
Plus, maybe there are people in town who will see it and want to take part in the restoration, Coltman says. There are lots of ways this can go. And in the same way that the flag connected her with an old friend, she hopes it could connect others, too.
That, Simper says, is actually a great way to think about stewarding the artifact. A common misconception is that preservation means locking something away in a museum, bringing it out only once in a while for the right person, the right occasion. But if they can keep the flag stable during the parade and display it just right in the gallery, it should be all right, and that way, more people can enjoy it. After all, it is a flag. Even an old one is made to withstand.
After the Fourth, Coltman will keep it at the Park City Lighthouse, where she will continue to enlist the help of anyone who feels they have something to give.
To help preserve the flag or contribute to the cost of doing so, contact Coltman at parkcitylighthouse.com.