The Arkansas flag was created in 1913 when the Battleship U.S.S. Arkansas was commissioned. The Daughters of the American Revolution discovered that there was no state flag to present to ship with (presenting a flag to ships was traditional). They decided to hold a flag designing competition. Miss Willie Hocker of Wabbaseka designed the winning flag which looked much like the flag we fly today.
The original flag was a white diamond on a red field bordered by twenty-five white stars on a blue band.
Three blue stars in a straight line were centered in the diamond. Miss Hocker explained that the three colors (red, white and blue) designated Arkansas as a member of the Union. The diamond shape signified Arkansas as the only state in North America where diamonds had been found and mined. The three stars in the center of the diamond had three meanings.
They represented the three countries that Arkansas had been a part of (Spain, France and the United States), the date of the Louisiana purchase which made Arkansas part of the US (1803) and the fact that Arkansas was the 3rd state created from the Louisiana purchase land. The 25 stars around the flag designated Arkansas as the 25th state of the Union. Hocker modified the flag several times before it was ratified as the official flag.
However, before it was ratified the flag had to be modified once again because there was no representation that Arkansas had been a part of the Confederacy on it. The legislature eventually added a fourth star to represent the Confederacy. The single solitary star above the name represents the Confederacy.
Because adding the forth star made the flag look asymmetrical (the bottom three stars were still arranged in a straight line) the legislator also offset one of the stars at the bottom giving us the flag we fly today.
