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Washington • Utah's state flag hung for about 15 years in the Hall of States at the John F. Kennedy Center For the Performing Arts here until a Holladay native discovered a pretty big historical error.
The flag noted the date of the Mormon pioneers' arrival in Utah as 1647, two centuries before Brigham Young proudly declared "this is the right place" and the LDS faithful set down roots.
On Monday, as Utahns celebrated the 170th anniversary of the founding of their state, Kennedy Center officials corrected the mistake, replacing the incorrect flag and hoisting a new, historically accurate banner.
"My pioneer ancestors are clapping upstairs now," said Ryan Martin, who grew up in the Salt Lake City suburb, graduated from Brigham Young University and now lives in Virginia.
Martin had visited the Kennedy Center — Washington's premier performing arts facility — years back and noticed something seemed off with the flag of his home state. Did it really say 1647? Was he seeing things?
Nope. The date was definitely wrong.
"I've been to too many Days of '47 parades to know it wasn't 1647," Martin said. "I'm sure the pioneers would have loved to arrive in Utah a few years after [the founding of] Jamestown," the first English settlement in the Americas that dates to 1607.
"That would have been a fast trip across the country," joked Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter.
All 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories' flags are displayed in the hall, arranged in order they joined the union or became an officially sanctioned American entity. Utah's flag was sandwiched between Wyoming and Oklahoma in the ornate, red-carpeted hall.
In 2002, some flags were replaced, including Utah's, though no one seemed to notice the 1647 date on the banner would have been downright impossible given the Mormon faith had yet to be established let alone had adherents began searching for their new home in the West.
The Kennedy Center was happy to order a new flag, and a worker Monday used a giant cherry picker to remove the offending mistake with the right banner.
Martin, a congressional staffer, got to keep the incorrect flag, and he plans to display it at his home, though he noted every July 24, he might pull it out and hang it outside — perhaps with masking tape correcting the date.
Rutter thanked Martin for catching the error and promised to double check the rest of the flags in the hall.
"The new, most exciting job of the next intern class is to check every one," she said.