HYRUM – Steve Downs, the Hyrum City Museum Board’s Vice-chair, was hanging his collection of 70 flags in Elite Hall located at 98 W. Main St. in Hyrum on Wednesday.
The flags have been hanging in Elite Hall as part of the city’s Star-Spangled Celebration for the past several years and each year a growing number of people venture into the building to look at the collection.
The Museum Chair, Kim Faulkner, was upstairs on the walking track securing the flags to the railing.
The Grand Old Flag display will be from now until Monday, July 6, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.
The flags have been hanging in Elite Hall as part of the city’s Star-Spangled Celebration for the past several years and each year more people venture into the building to look at the collection.
There are around 70 flags decorating the historic dance hall. There is even an America 250 Celebration flag hanging up in the hall.
It’s all part of Hyrum City’s America 250 Celebration.
“I’ve been collecting the flags since America’s bicentennial in 1976,” Downs said. “There are British Colony flags, Civil War Flags, Flags with 13 stars, Flags with 45 stars and some with 48 stars.”
Each flag is a history lesson, and each flag has a description and a history placed on a table where visitors can read about them.
“I used to put flags in front of my Main Street business in Hyrum,” he said. “And then I just started collecting them.”
Downs has lived in Hyrum his whole life and owned a print shop for years.
“I sold the building a few years ago and decided to donate the flags to the museum,” he said.
His wife Linda thought he was crazy, but he kept collecting them.
“I’ve used them for scouting when I was involved in Boy Scouts of America,” he said. “A few years ago, I decided to donate them to the museum.”
The museum’s curator, Courtney Cochley, said last year they had almost 1,000 people come through the flag display.
“We have had people call and make sure they are going to be up,” she said. “We have a family from Farmington comes up every year to see them.”
She said a family from Massachusetts came to see the display one year.