The Three Flags Festival

The Three Flags Festival will be a six-day commemorative event marking the 200th anniversary of the transfer of the Upper Louisiana Territory from Spain to France to the United States. To be held in St. Louis March 9-14, 2004, the event will attract both national and international attention to the signal importance of the Louisiana Purchase in the history of Missouri and the United States. The Purchase doubled the size of the United States, elevated a fledgling nation into a world power, made Missouri and 12 other future states a part of this nation, and transformed St. Louis, a small trading post, into the Gateway to the West.

Performances, lectures, and exhibits on the French, Spanish, American, African-American, and Native American cultures that intermingled in early St. Louis take place throughout The Three Flags Festival. The ceremony itself occurs on the Mississippi riverfront at the Gateway Arch commemorating the transfer of power over the vast Upper Louisiana Territory in its capitol of St. Louis, to the United States. The President of the United States, the President of France, and the King of Spain are invited in addition to the governors of the thirteen states formed from the Purchase and the Principal Chief of the Osage Nation.

If the Louisiana Purchase offered the potential for the creation of a rich, multicultural civilization blending Native American, French, Spanish, Anglo-American, and other influences, it also provoked conflicts among diverse peoples who viewed the world differently. If the Louisiana Purchase opened the door to the exploration and cultivation of seemingly limitless natural resources, it also gave birth to the hazards of environmental exploitation and degradation. The United States continues to this day to deal with the opportunities and costs of the Louisiana Purchase. Thus, the commemoration of the Purchase will be no mere ceremony. It will be an exercise in civic engagement, a call for renewed understanding of the American past and its lessons for the future of the St. Louis region, the American West, and the United States.

• The Three Flags Ceremony in History
• Design of the March 12-14, 2004 Event