The Fayetteville flag was approved by the City Council in 1976. Also, it’s been to outer space.

Chances are good that every person living in Fayetteville has visited the City Administration Building for one reason or another. Maybe it was to check up on the City Council or attend some other public meeting. You’ve probably at least stopped by to pay your water bill, activate your service, or pay a parking fine.

If nothing else, you’ve almost certainly walked up Mountain Street at one point or another to attend the Farmers’ Market. We’d be willing to wager, however, that many of you have never noticed the Fayetteville flag flying in front of City Hall.

Until recently, neither had we.

Certificate from Arkansas Air Museum

As it happens, Fayetteville does have a flag. It was officially adopted by the City Council on August 17, 1976, and came from a design contest held by Boy Scout Troop 142 earlier that year. The winning design was created by Michael Browning, an architecture engineering student at the University of Arkansas.

The flag is red with a yellow circle on it. The word “Fayetteville” appears at the top, and the year that the city received its name, “1829,” is at the bottom of the circle.

In the middle, a black mountain, blue sky, and white clouds are displayed with the words “Regnat Populus” sort of off-center over the mountains. Regnat Populus was adopted as the Arkansas state motto in 1907, and is latin for “The People Rule.”

There are two copies of the Fayetteville flag that we know of — the one that has flown at City Hall for the last 35 years, and another one that’s currently located inside the Arkansas Air Museum in South Fayetteville. The flag at the museum was taken into outer space aboard the United States Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985, thanks to the efforts of Fayetteville-born astronaut Richard Covey.

So, now you know. Fayetteville has a flag, and it has been to outer space.