Maryland Department of General Services Celebrates Maryland Day

Hand-held flags and lapel pins will be distributed to honor the day

BALTIMORE, MD – The Maryland Department of General Services (DGS) will commemorate Maryland Day today by presenting hand-held Maryland flags and lapel pins to visitors and employees at DGS facilities in Baltimore and Annapolis.

“Marylanders are known around the nation for their love of the Maryland flag,” said DGS Secretary Ellington Churchill, Jr. “What better way to celebrate our state’s history than giving our citizens and visitors Maryland flags and pins to wave and wear with pride.”

The first European settlers landed in Maryland on March 25, 1634, and called the area the Province of Maryland. Maryland was granted statehood April 28, 1788, but it wasn’t until 1903 that Maryland Day became an official holiday. In 1916, the Maryland General Assembly authorized Maryland Day as a legal holiday.

The Maryland state flag was officially adopted in 1904. The Maryland flag bears the arms of the Calvert and Crossland families; Calvert being the family name of the Lords Baltimore who founded Maryland, and their colors of gold and black; and Crossland was the family of the mother of George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, with their colors of red and white.

Today, more than one thousand American-made Maryland flags with a gold cross bottony, as well as five hundred lapel pins will be distributed at the following locations: Maryland State House, Budget & Management in Annapolis, the Treasury Building in Annapolis, Community Place in Crownsville, the State Center buildings in Baltimore, and the William Donald Schaefer Building in Baltimore.