This hand-painted flag flew over Fort Ruby in eastern Nevada on October 31, 1864: the day Nevada was admitted to the Union as the 36th state. This 36 by 21 inch flag arranges the stars in a 6-6-6-6-6-6 square pattern on a field a blue and displays the traditional 13 alternating red and white stripes representing the original 13 colonies. The 36-star flag did not become the Official United States Flag until July 4th, 1865, and only served for 2 years until Nebraska gained statehood in 1867. It served as the official flag for the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Reconstruction era. The Fort Ruby 36-Star Flag is undoubtedly one of the first flags to include Nevada in the stars.
Dr. John W. Long served as the Post Doctor at Fort Ruby from 1863 to 1866 and took the flag home to Ohio as a memento after his tour of duty. In 1965, over a century after the flag was first raised, Dr. Long’s family presented the flag to Governor Grant Sawyer to be placed in the Nevada State Archives. For thirty years, the flag was encased in a Plexiglas frame and frequently exhibited, exposing it to excessive stress and harmful light. It was then freed from its frame, analyzed, and cleaned by a textile conservator. The flag is now preserved according to museum standards and can only be exhibited for a few days a year for as long as it lasts. In 2014, the Nevada Museum of Art displayed the flag as part of its exhibit “The 36th Star: Nevada’s Journey from Territory to State.” In addition, the flag is often displayed during the annual Nevada National Guard's Flag Day Ceremony each June.
A brief history of Fort Ruby:
Two years after construction in 1862, Fort Ruby became the first fort composed entirely of Nevada volunteers, the origins of the present-day Nevada National Guard. Anywhere from 100 to 300 soldiers could be found there, including Company B, 1st Nevada Volunteers, before the fort closed in 1869. Capt. George Alva Thurston was in charge beginning in the fall of 1864 until December 1865.
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