RI's historic battle flags were sent to Massachusetts for storage. Will they ever come home?

In 2017, battle flags taken into combat by Rhode Island soldiers from the American Revolution up through World War I were removed from their cases at the entrance to the State House to halt their decay.

They've never returned.

For the last seven years, the 80 flags have lived in a storage facility in Randolph, Massachusetts, protected from the heat, cold, humidity, dust, sunlight and insects of the State House, but inaccessible to the public.

Whether they will ever return to Rhode Island is anyone's guess.

It will take an act of the legislature to get the flags back

Last week, House lawmakers unanimously passed a bill that would allow the flags to be loaned to agencies or museums for preservation or if it "will promote the further education and public awareness of the valor of Rhode Island's veterans."

"They are some of the state's most important treasures," Rep. Evan Shanley, D-Warwick, said while introducing the bill on the floor Thursday. "This bill would begin the process of securing a long-term secure home for these priceless artifacts ... Whether that home is ultimately in the State House or future state archives or someplace else, it is important these flags be displayed with the protections they need for preservation."

He said the Varnum Armory Museum in East Greenwich and National Museum of the U.S. Army have expressed interest in displaying a flag temporarily.

While the legislation points toward a permanent home for the flags in Rhode Island, there are no public plans to establish one.

Gov. Dan McKee did not propose any spending in his budget for next year to bring the flags back.

State law says the flags must be displayed "in the halls or foyers of the State House" unless they are being repaired or preserved.

The bill introduced for the Department of Administration by Rep. Samuel Azzinaro, D-Westerly, would replace that reference to the State House with "appropriate storage and display cases ... and a permanent storage facility within the state of Rhode Island."

It now moves to the Senate, where a matching version introduced by Sen. Walter Felag, D-Warren, was scheduled for a hearing Wednesday.

Secretary of State Gregg Amore has offered the flags as an example of the things that could be stored in a new $100-million state archives building, but funding for the building is uncertain. Lawmakers will decide this summer whether to ask voters to approve $60 million for the archives as proposed by McKee's budget.

If a new state archives isn't built, the flags may remain Bay State residents for a long time.

What happened to the flags?

The first battle flags moved into bronze and glass Gorham Manufacturing Co. display cases in 1903. Most of the flags flew in the Civil War, but there were also four flags from the Spanish-American War and two rare flags from the Revolutionary War.

In 1917, display of the flags in the State House was written into state law. In the 1920s, two new cases were added to hold 15 flags from WWI, and in the 1960s the older flags were encapsulated in nylon net.

The flags sat on their original wooden staffs, hardly touched, greeting tourists and lobbyists entering the State House for decades until their condition became a concern in the 2010s.

"Over time, the collection has been subjected to dust, light damage, fluctuations in temperature and humidity, insect infestations and other environmental damage," Sarah Stevens of Zephyr Preservation Studio wrote in a 2017 state-commissioned report on the flags. "The cases have not been modified or upgraded to meet textile exhibition standards."

The flags were taken down, packed up driven to a climate- and light-controlled space in Randolph.

More: Where will RI store its treasures? Two sites have emerged for proposed archives museum.

What's next?

Stevens' report on the flags said they should be displayed flat to prevent the damage from gravity if they hang on their staffs.

That means they are unlikely to return the foyer of the State House, where there is not enough room in the old cases to show them and not enough space to build more.

The dollar value of the flags is difficult to calculate.

In addition to the Revolutionary War flags, one of the Civil War flags was painted by African-American artist David Bustill Bowser for the Black Rhode Island 14th Regiment Heavy Artillery.

The state Division of Capital Asset Management is in "discussions about future opportunities to permanently house the flags," spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly wrote last week.

The state has a contract with Zephyr Preservation Studios to maintain the flags through the fiscal year starting July 1, 2028.

"This allows [state asset managers] several years to develop a long-term storage and display strategy for the historic battle flags and markers, with the ultimate goal being the safe display of these artifacts for the Rhode Island public to view and appreciate for generations to come," she wrote.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Where are RI's battle flags? Why the state's relics are stored in Massachusetts