American flag returns to Anderson Circle

Historic City News local staff photographer, Kerry McGuire, was on the scene for a patriotic display of support and a round of spontaneous applause as St. Augustine Fire Department personnel returned the American flag to its place atop the flagpole in the center of Anderson Circle today.

The city owns the flagpole, however, it has been a year or more since the colors were displayed at the location on Anderson Circle; in front of the American Legion hall at the west foot of the Bridge of Lions.

“There is no longer a cord in place to hoist the flag from the ground each day,” Historic City News editor Michael Gold said. “For as long as I can remember, there was always a flag there — and that’s going back over fifty years.”

Former City Commissioner Bill Lennon, whose home is directly across the bay, said that he has been noticing “the naked flagpole” each morning as he drives to town.

Daniel D. Holiday, who lives downtown, told Historic City News local reporters that he has been asking about the missing flag for months and has yet to get an answer, “Nobody seems to know what happened, why they stopped, or who’s supposed to put it back.”

As soon as the ladder truck pulled up to the south curb around Anderson Circle, let down its stabilizers and extended the ladder over 40′ to the top of the flagpole, a crowd of curious spectators began to form.

As one firefighter tended the ladder, another scaled the length of the ladder and attached the flag in place. As the flag unfurled in the winds off the Matanzas Bay, visitors with camera phones, those with video camcorders and other photo equipment, went about capturing the moment to take home with their families — sensing the importance of what they were witnessing.

Without prompting, groups of onlookers at the market, lingering in front of the A1A Ale Works, gathered along Cathedral Place and standing along Charlotte Street, one-by-one began to applaud the quintessential Fourth of July symbol expressed by our American flag.

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waive, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Photo credit: © 2010 Historic City News staff photographer Kerry McGuire