Elks Lodge 1460 of Platteville will hold a public Flag Day program at the lodge, 50 S. Oak St., Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

The first Flag Day was held by a Wisconsin schoolteacher in 1885, to commemorate the U.S. flag’s adoption June 14, 1877. The San Diego Elks Lodge held its first Flag Day observance in 1904, and three years later the national Elks Grand Lodge encouraged all Elks Lodges to observe Flag Day; the observance became mandatory in 1911. 

President Harry S. Truman, an Elk, proclaimed Flag Day in August 1949. A decade later, after Alaska and Hawaii became the last two states in the U.S., Joseph Vrtel, an Elk from Florida, designed the current 50-state U.S. flag.