Colorado state tartan
THE COLORADO TARTAN--OFFICIAL, 1997 To honor the State of Colorado, and Coloradans of Celtic heritage Designed February 1995, initial trial sett woven January 1996 by The Reverend John B. Pahls, Jr, B.Mus., M.Div. Declared the Official Tartan of the State of Colorado by Joint Resolution of the Colorado General Assembly, Denver, March 1997 Seit Recorded in the Master Archive of the Scottish Tartans Authority, Pilochry, July 1997 THE COLORADO TARTAN was designed to honor the State of Colorado, of which the designer is a resident and native in the third generation, and all Coloradans of Scottish, Irish, and other Celtic descent who have made significant contributions to the life of the state before and since the granting of statehood in 1876. While a commemorative tartan, it may also be considered a "district" tartan which may be worn by any resident or friend of Colorado. The tartan was declared official by the Colorado General Assembly in House Joint Resolution 97-1016, adopted unanimously by the House of Representatives on February 28, 1997, the Senate unanimously concurring on March 14, 1997. The sett of the Colorado Tartan, of seven colors, is based on the proportions of the "Government" or "Black Watch" tartan but with the primary checks of blue and green reversed in relation to the pattern of overchecks. All green ground checks contain the "double-pairs-of-tramlines" motif to the outer edges. While the employment of "symbolic colors" in tartan design is normally deprecated, the visually striking natural colors found in Colorado, particularly in its mountain areas, lend themselves handsomely to tartan and it is difficult to imagine not including them even though "symbolic" interpretation is probably inevitable. The blue is a brilliant cerulean and very nearly the color of the sky, especially in the mountains and away from the populous "front range", on most of the more than 300 days of sunshine during the average year. The dark green of the ground check is a very obvious reference to the huge stands of pine and spruce common in the mountains. The double pairs of lavender and white "tramline" stripes on the green check are the colors of the granite of our mountain peaks, seen most clearly above "timberline" at altitudes above 11,000 feet (which inspired the "purple mountain majesties" of Katherine Lee Bates' America the Beautiful written at the summit of Pikes Peak in 1893), and of the snow which coats them several months a year from late fall through spring. Lavender and white are also the approximate colors of the "Rocky Mountain columbine", or aquilegia cerulaea, the state flower which grows in abundance in the wild at altitudes above 7,000 feet. The single most "heraldic" element in the design is the gold stripe with its scarlet guard lines on the blue check, recalling the gold roundel surrounded by a red "C" on the state flag; the gold was said to signity the mining industry on which much of the state's early economy was built, and the red "C" both the first letter of the state's name and the red sandstone soil which gave the area its name (colorado meaning "red colored" in Spanish).
