Official and Traditional Colors of Maine

Maine Revised Statutes Title 1, § 206, adopted by the Legislature of 1909, specifies that the state flag shall be blue of the same color as the blue field in the flag of the United States. This legal language ties Maine's blue directly to Old Glory Blue, standardized in heraldic practice as approximately Pantone PMS 281 (HEX #003F87). The 1909 flag replaced the shorter-lived 1901 Pine Tree Flag, which featured a buff background with a blue North Star and green pine tree, and established Union Blue as Maine's dominant institutional color for all subsequent official state applications listed in broader state flag references. The flag's navy blue field was explicitly chosen to honor the Union veterans of the American Civil War, as newspaper accounts from the period noted that the blue was intended to represent the Union Blue carried by Maine's regiments at Gettysburg and other major engagements.

Maine's first official state flag, adopted on March 21, 1901, during the state's 70th legislative session under Chapter 233, featured a green pine tree at its center on a buff-colored background, with a blue North Star in the upper canton. The green pine tree had no standardized shade specified in the legislation, which simply called for 'a pine tree proper,' but manufacturers and contemporary accounts consistently rendered it in a deep forest green representing the color of live eastern white pine foliage. The 1901 flag established green as an integral part of Maine's visual identity alongside blue, a pairing that persists in state tourism branding and environmental communications more than a century after the flag was replaced by the current 1909 design. Though the 1901 flag failed to be re-adopted in the November 2024 statewide ballot referendum, the movement to restore it demonstrated the enduring strength of green as a symbol of Maine's identity.

Blue's association with Maine runs through both its military history and its maritime identity. The state flag's navy blue field was chosen in 1909 specifically to honor the service of Maine's Civil War regiments, who carried blue battle flags into engagements including the Battle of Gettysburg, where the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry under Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain held Little Round Top in one of the most celebrated defensive actions of the war. Beyond its military resonance, blue represents the Atlantic Ocean that defines Maine's entire southeastern boundary, the Gulf of Maine recognized as one of the fastest-warming ocean bodies in the world, and the thousands of lakes, ponds, and rivers — Maine has more than 6,000 lakes and ponds — that cover the state's interior.

Green's connection to Maine begins before European settlement and runs unbroken through the present day. The eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), designated the official state tree by the Maine Legislature in 1945, was so valuable to the British Royal Navy as a source of ship masts that the Crown placed a Broad Arrow mark on the finest specimens across New England, reserving them for royal use. Colonists' resentment of this policy contributed to tensions that preceded the American Revolution. The Pine Tree Riot of 1772 in Weare, New Hampshire, in which colonists attacked royal officials enforcing the Mast Tree Policy, is considered an early act of American defiance. Maine's forests supplied timber for shipbuilding throughout the 19th century, and the state's lumber industry shaped its economy and culture for generations. Today, Maine's 17.7 million acres of forest remain the foundation of a multi-billion dollar forest products industry and the state's defining landscape.