Events

250th Birthday Celebration!

On display for the 2026 Season

We are excited to have on display a hand-stitched replica of a Civil War flag. The original 20-by-30-foot flag was created in 1862 by the ladies of the Republican Club in Reads Landing, Minnesota, to show their support for the Union during the Civil War. The ladies were so eager to make this 36-star flag that they used two shades of red fabric because there was not enough of one shade available in town. The completed flag hung from a 110-foot flagpole, allowing everyone traveling up and down the Mississippi River to know that Reads Landing was a Union town.

After the war, the flag traveled around Minnesota before returning to Reads Landing in 1914 for the annual Homecoming Celebration. In 1915, the Reads Landing Association donated the flag to the Minnesota Historical Society, where it remains in their care today.

The replica flag currently hanging at the museum was stitched by the women of the reenactment group the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. While it is only one-third the size of the original, it is still impressive in scale. The flag will be on display throughout the 2026 season.

1914 reads landing homecoming celebration with the flag hung on the schoolhouse (now the museum).

The smaller hand-stitched replica flag currently on display at the museum.