68. County Flag

This Montgomery County flag was a 1936 design inspired by Lilly Stone, who would lead the founding of the Montgomery County Historical Society in 1944. On May 3 1944, the flag design was adopted, remaining in use until 1976. This example of the first county flag, donated in 2013, was reportedly flown over one of the stations of the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department.

At the center of a yellow field is the coat of arms that Mrs. Stone chose to represent General Richard Montgomery, for whom the county was named in 1776. Those particular arms, however, actually date to an 1808 Irish baronetcy in the family. Nonetheless, the arms include key heraldic symbols of this Scottish and Irish family, the Montgomery fleurs-de-lis quartered with the Eglinton gemstone finger rings (based on a 1368 marriage). The family motto, “Gardez Bien” (French war cry “watch well”), appears on a scroll below. The flag includes the county name and the dates 1776 and 1936. On October 5, 1976, a new county flag, a bold, much simplified version of the Montgomery family coat of arms, with two quarters bearing a single fleur-de-lis on blue and two with a single ring on red, was adopted.

The first Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department station was in the old National Guard Armory at 8131 Georgia Avenue; it was replaced in 2007, and the building is now a restaurant. In 1947, a second fire station was built on University Boulevard in the Four Corners area, replaced in 1968 with a more modern station. An extant third station was built on Seminary Road near Georgia Avenue in 1959.

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