Betsy Ross of Oklahoma - Shawnee, OK - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com

Louise Funk was born February 9, 1900 in Van Buren, Arkansas. She moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1901 and grew up in the Oklahoma Territory. After studying art at Columbia University and the Chicago Art Institute, she returned to Oklahoma and married George Fluke in 1924.

In 1925, she entered a contest sponsored by the Oklahoma Daughters of the American Revolution to design a new Oklahoma flag. She studied Oklahoma history and the history of the Native Americans and chose as her design, an Osage war shield with six crosses representing the Indian symbol for stars and seven pendant eagle feathers. A peace pipe and an olive branch represented a united people living in peace. She won the contest and her design was adopted in 1925.

At the corner of Main Street and Pennsylvania, south of the Santa Fe Depot is a small area known as Centennial Park. Here, a granite monument has been erected in honor of her achievement. The monument does not indicate who sponsored the monument, but it is likely it was placed here by the Wunagisa Chapter of the D.A.R.

Etched into the granite is a depiction of the Oklahoma flag, and a picture of Louise Fluke with the inscription: "Louise Funk Fluke (1900-1986) Designer of the state flag of Oklahoma, was born in Arkansas and raised in Shawnee. She entered the winning flag design in a statewide contest in 1925 through the Wunagisa Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution. She is buried at Fairview Cemetery."

Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link] Location: Centennial Park, Shawnee, OK

Visit Instructions:
Add another photo of the memorial. You and/or your GPS can be in the photo, but this isn't necessary.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   09/27/2021 The Snowdog visited it 03/13/2018 djbtex visited it

View all visits/logs