Texas State Colors | Blue White Red

The 1933 legislation designating Texas's official state colors did not specify exact Pantone or HEX values, as color standardization systems of that precision did not yet exist in American state government practice. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Texas Secretary of State's office have since adopted standardized color specifications consistent with the flag's official manufacturing standards. The Texas Flag Code, codified in the Texas Government Code Chapter 3100, provides detailed specifications for the Lone Star Flag's colors, which serve as the definitive reference for the state colors.

The Lone Star Flag that gives Texas's state colors their historical foundation was designed by Dr. Charles Bellinger Stewart and adopted by the Congress of the Republic of Texas on January 25, 1839. The flag featured a vertical blue stripe on the hoist side bearing a single white five-pointed star, with two horizontal stripes of white over red on the fly side. The design drew on the colors of earlier Texas revolutionary flags, creating visual continuity with the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836 that produced the Republic. When Texas joined the Union on December 29, 1845, the flag was retained as the state flag, making it one of only two flags in American history — alongside Hawaii's — to have served as both the national flag of an independent republic and a U.S. state flag in the Lone Star State narrative.

The designation of blue as the color of loyalty in Texas law speaks directly to the experience of the Texas Revolution and the Republic. The settlers who fought for Texas independence at the Alamo, at Goliad, and at San Jacinto in 1836 were demonstrating a loyalty to a vision of self-governance that the Mexican government under President Santa Anna had suppressed. The blue stripe of the Lone Star Flag, which frames the single white star of Texas independence, represents this fidelity — to each other, to the republic they created, and later to the United States after annexation in 1846. Texas blue, standardized as a deep navy approximating PMS 281, is one of the most authoritative blues in American state vexillology.

White's designation as purity in the Texas Flag Code reflects the aspirational quality of the republic's founding documents. The Texas Declaration of Independence, adopted on March 2, 1836 — now celebrated as Texas Independence Day — articulated a vision of civic life grounded in natural rights and constitutional government. The white star at the center of the Lone Star Flag, the most iconic single element in any American state flag, embodies this aspiration. The single star also gave Texas both its flag's name and its state nickname, the Lone Star State, making white the color most directly associated with Texas's foundational self-image as an independent, self-sufficient commonwealth.

Red's designation as bravery is among the most historically weighted color designations in American state law. The defenders of the Alamo — including James Bowie, Davy Crockett, and William Barret Travis — who held the San Antonio mission against Santa Anna's army for thirteen days in February and March 1836 before being overwhelmed on March 6, represent the archetype of Texan bravery embedded in the red of the state colors. The Alamo's fall, rather than ending the Texas Revolution, galvanized the Texan army under Sam Houston, who defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 — Texas Independence Day in fact if not in declaration — with the battle cry 'Remember the Alamo.' Red in Texas carries the weight of that sacrifice.