In front of almost any public building in the area, you will see a flag pole with Old Glory proudly waiving in the breeze, even during these dreary winter months.

Now days, we take it for granted that the United States flag belongs in front of our schools, post offices, and other public structures—not to mention in front of so many private homes.

But over the last 350 years or so, a number of different flags of a number of different nations and governments have flown over the area that now comprises our Fox River Valley.

The history of the arrival and exit of those flags, in fact, mirrors the history of the region itself, something worth considering as we celebrate this, the 250th year of our nation’s independence.

If the Illinois Indians had a flag, they would have had it proudly flying in front of their public buildings when Marquette and Jolliet arrived at what we now called Starved Rock in 1673. Alas, they had no flags and no comprehension of the disaster that was about to befall them as the first Europeans pushed southwest from Canada into Illinois.

The first white man to bring a flag with him was explorer and businessman Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle. LaSalle unsuccessfully tried to colonize the Illinois Country in 1679, but due to a number of mishaps, failed and was forced to regroup and try again a few years later.

In 1683, he finally succeeded in journeying all the way through Illinois and then down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. There he claimed the entire Mississippi watershed for France.

Returning upriver, LaSalle and his faithful Italian companion Henri de Tonti, paddled up the Illinois River and established the first permanent French fort in Illinois atop Starved Rock. Thus, the royal flag of France was the first to float over Illinois and the Fox Valley.

Although the French claimed Illinois, they managed to hold on to it for only 80 years. Illinois was a rich region, and both the French and their commercial enemies in North America, the British, wanted control of it.

After several colonial wars between the French and British, aided by both their Native American allies, the British finally prevailed during the Seven Years War. In 1763, France ceded Illinois to the British.

Though the French abandoned Illinois, the area’s Indian inhabitants decided they didn’t want to be given abandoned, and that same year, 1763, proceeded to slaughter every Brit they could find.

The war, called Pontiac’s Rebellion, was quashed by a Swiss colonel fighting for the Brits. But it took two years before British troops finally arrived at Fort de Chartres in southern Illinois to raise the Union Jack in October 1765. Thus flag number two waved over Illinois.

The British held on to Illinois for even less time than the French. On July 4, 1778, George Rogers Clark, at the head of about 170 Virginia militia, seized the Illinois Country for the state of Virginia during the Revolutionary. Thus we became Illinois County of the state of Virginia. Flag number three.

Clark was able to withstand the continued assaults of the British largely due to the assistance of the Spanish, who at that time controlled the lands across the Mississippi from Illinois. And Spain, like France and England, also had men willing to spend a few months working to become heroes.

Therefore, on a couple occasions, including the most successful one in 1781, small Spanish forces marched northeast from St. Louis to try to capture the Illinois country for Spain.

One time, one of these small, and eccentric, groups even managed to reach Fort St. Joseph on the St. Joseph River over in Indiana, capture the place, and raise the flag of Imperial Spain, claiming the Illinois Country for the Spanish crown before marching home again.

Although this unlikely development is little more than a historical footnote—and Spain never really tried to capitalize on it—it does add one more flag that has flown over Illinois, making it flag number four.

The Revolutionary War caused a lot of confusion here in Illinois. No one, not even George Rogers Clark, really knew who was in charge. Was it Clark, the military commander? Or was it the Virginia representative sent out from Williamsburg? The confusion eventually led to no order at all, and Illinois became the truly wild, and lawless, frontier.

Seeing little profit but more than a little expense arising from an area whose inhabitants attacked each other with such zest, the Virginia Assembly sensibly decided to wash their hands of the whole area. They happily signed Illinois County over to the Federal government after the war ended, and the United States flag flew, at last, over what would one day be the state of Illinois. Flag number five.

Although England ceded Illinois to the United States via the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Revolution, like their brothers after the French and Indian War, the Indians living in the area decided they didn’t want to be ceded, either.

A series of embarrassing Indian wars resulted and the United States was actually forced to call back to service soldiers who knew something about fighting a war, political General Arthur St. Clair having lost an entire army somewhere between Ohio and Illinois. Battles at Fallen Timbers (Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne) and Tippecanoe (Gen. William Henry Harrison) finally quelled the Indian threat on the frontier.

Although I admit the British flag again flew over northern Illinois during the War of 1812, I consider it a repeat so it doesn’t count.

In 1789, the U.S. Congress created the Northwest Territory, a huge area north and west of the Ohio River, including the current states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. In 1809, Illinois Territory was carved out of the rest of the Northwest Territory.

And finally, with statehood on Dec. 3, 1818 came the sixth and final flag to fly over the Fox Valley, the Illinois state flag.

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