SAN ANTONIO – Summer is the time for Old Glory to shine brighter than ever, and one local company sells thousands of custom U.S. flags each year to ensure a full display on the Fourth of July.
Vanessa Van De Putte, owner of Dixie Flag and Banner Company in San Antonio, said the time between Memorial Day and July 4 is known as the flag or patriotic season.
“This is the time where the majority of our customers are looking for the red, white and blue,” she said.
The company makes flags year-round, and not just U.S. flags.
“Over an entire year, we’re selling probably close to like 4,000 United States flags,” Van De Putte said.
Their work has been prominently displayed worldwide, too, she shared.
“The largest U.S. flag we’ve ever made, I believe, is 150 feet by 300 feet. So it’s the entire length of a football field,” Van De Putte said.
The company’s flags have also been flown over the George Washington Bridge between New York and New Jersey. Van De Putte said it was the largest free-flying flag in the U.S. for a while.
“We also made a flag that was unfurled at the Freedom Tower, 10 years after 911,” she said. “Our flags have been in the last six presidential inaugurations.”
Anyone displaying a flag in the Texas summer should consider applique flags over printed flags.
“Because the colors stay truer and brighter, longer,” Van De Putte said.
“And so especially in the Texas sun, where you’re going to get, well — the material is going to fade out eventually, the applique flags last a lot longer.”
Dixie Flag is part of the Flag Manufacturers Association of America, which is pushing the Make American Flags in America Act, HR 4137. The bill calls for any U.S. Flag displayed on a federal building to be sourced and made in the U.S.