A brief history of the company flag of the Great Lakes Towing Company has already been covered in this exhibit, however, in recent weeks, this flag was identified to have been used by the famous towing company in its early years. This three-foot-long rectangular flag was the company’s first and only other known variant. In comparing the two, they are quite different in flag shape and decorative details. The only small similarity that is seen is spotted in the upper left corner; a dark blue square with a white “G” at the center which resembles the flag used today. Typically a flag reflects the company logo on a smokestack, which can be seen here with this flag. The Story of The Great Lakes Towing Co. states that the initial tug smokestack emblem had a “rectangular G”, the one seen in the upper left corner of this flag. In 1949, the smokestack emblem became a “stylized G”, the emblem which reflects the current flag. Based on this information the flag design likely changed between the 1940s and 1950s to reflect the change in logo design.