Mormon Founders of Las Vegas Celebrate the Fourth of July in 1855

Celebrating the Fourth of July in 1855, Mormon founders of Las Vegas' Old Fort raised an improvised flag of Deseret.
Named Las Vegas, meaning the meadows in Spanish, the valley boasted springs which attracted travelers on the Old Spanish Trail. In 1855, Brigham Young sent William Bringhurst and thirty men to establish a way station in the Las Vegas Valley. The area was part of the proposed State of Deseret, but was not included in the Utah Territory established in 1850. Young, however, recognized the strategic importance of Las Vegas as a stopping place between Salt Lake and San Diego.
John Steele recorded in his Journal and in a letter to George A. Smith the 1855 Independence Day celebration at the Old Mormon Fort. "On the Fourth of July" Steele wrote, "we made preparations to celebrate independence, and indeed we did it justice according to our situation." Not having an artillery piece to fire a salute, Steele reported, "the blacksmith's anvil answered for a cannon." The cavity of an anvil was packed with black powder with an inverted anvil placed upon it. The seam was sealed with mud and a fuse leading to the powder lit. The resulting explosion launches the second anvil about on hundred feet into the air. This "shooting off of the anvils" imitated the sound of a firing cannon. This and "many volley of musketry gave the sleeping native to know something was up."
Bringhurst gave Steele 1 ½ yards of white cloth to make a flag. Steele also scrounged a red flannel shirt and some blue denim from an old pair of jeans. Tearing the red and white fabric into stripes, he "took some blue[from the jeans] and made stars." Eighteen small stars were cut in all. They were placed with "nine [stars] on a side [of the flag], with a large eight pointed star in the center representing Deseret." 

This vague description is open to several interpretations. One version has been made up and is on display at the Old Mormon Fort in Las Vegas. A careful reading of the description found in both Steele's journal and letter lead me to a different interpretation of the probable design. My interpretation is also made having had the experience of making several flags with stars and stripes in their design. Neither version is probably completely accurate. We don't know how many red and white stripes were made. The size of the union is unknown. The pattern of the stars is not disclosed. Nevertheless, the stars were most likely blue on a white canton with nine stars and a larger star of Deseret on the front of the flag with the remaining stars on the back of the flag. While this may seem strange to modern eyes, the design is consistent with other flags of Deseret made during the period.
The flag was not ready to be raised at sunrise. Steele completed the flag by early afternoon. Not having "good timber" for a liberty pole, the men "got a mesquite stump, a false wagon tongue, and a tall willow, and made a pole 30 feet high." Here at two o'clock in the afternoon, they "shook out the flag at the sound of guns [and ] three cheers." At the Old Fort's bowery, the men enjoyed "spirited speeches, songs, and toasts…." These pioneers indeed did justice in their celebration of the Fourth.
Today, Las Vegas lies in Nevada, not Utah. Nonetheless, its Flag of Deseret remains an illuminating example in the story of Utah's flags.