Sarah Lightley/ The Broadside

The Old Mill District in Bend attracts many tourists and locals for shopping, the wonderful food, lovely walks along the river, and during the summer, floating down the river. The river is not the only beautiful thing that adorns the landscape in the Old Mill, the flags that hold their place on top of the bridges in the Old Mill District add a pop of color. 

Have you ever wondered who puts up the flags or how they decide which colors to put up?

Carrie Ramoz, the media representative for the Old Mill District, sets up a calendar for the colors and the dates that the flags will go up. Ramoz said, “the wonderful Millsite Landscape crew changes the flags.”  

Not many people have seen the changing of the flags. 

Ramoz said that the flags are changed, “during the day.” 

“The Millsite team prefers to change them in the early morning, but it is often dependent on weather conditions, which can vary greatly throughout the day in Bend!”  

As you walk down the Old Mill District trails you may have seen the flag colors change over the seasons. Ramoz said, “the flags can stay up from 1-3 weeks.”

A lot of thought goes into choosing the right color for the flags, as some colors you may have seen have meaning behind them.

Ramoz indicated, “We support many non-profits and sometimes flag colors are chosen to support them.” An example of this is when in early April, Old Mill District changes the flag colors to blue to represent Child Abuse Awareness.

The choosing of the colors is not always done by Carrie Ramoz, sometimes there is an opportunity for people from the community to pick the colors. 

“In a raffle to support Healing Reins (one of our non-profit partners) this fall, we raffled off the opportunity to choose the flag color,” said Ramoz. 

“In another event, the winner chose red, orange, and yellow to honor the firefighters who battled the fires around the state this summer,” said Ramoz.”

Other colors are put up to represent holidays, like green and red for Christmas, blue and silver for Hanukkah, and green for St Patrick’s day.

There are even flag colors to celebrate the University of Oregon & Oregon State football game; there is green and yellow on one side and black and orange on the other side of the bridge.

The rest of the colors you see on the bridge pair well together or “complement the season.”

Next time you are at the Old Mill District, check out the flags that are on the bridge!