Kitchener, Ontario

Kitchener city has two flags, one with crest and one with logo.
Valentin Poposki, 31 July 2005

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From www.city.kitchener.on.ca/pdf/logo_guidelines_03.pdf:

There are two official City of Kitchener flags. The flag featuring the crest can only be used at City Hall. This is also the only flag to be flown at City Hall in addition to the Canadian and Provincial flags. The flag bearing the logo can be used at any City facility or any City sponsored event as needed. The logo flag is available in two different dimensions to accommodate different sized flagpoles (36 x 72 and 72 x 144).

Ned Smith, 1 August 2005

From the History of Kitchener

In 1784, the land on which the City of Kitchener would be established was part of a large tract of more than 240,000 hectares of land, set aside by the British Crown as a grant to the Six Nations Indians for their loyalty to the Crown during the American War of Independence. Between 1796 and 1798, the Six Nations Indians led by Joseph Brant, sold off 38,000 hectares of land to Colonel Richard Beasley, a United Empire Loyalist. While located far inland and isolated from centres of commerce, the land owned by Beasley appealed to a particular group of Pennsylvania German Mennonite farmers.

Fuelled by the fear that their religious freedoms and exemption from military service under British rule would not be guaranteed following the American Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania German Mennonites began to search for new areas of settlement. In the 1790s Mennonites responded to advertisements for Upper Canada promising inexpensive land and the guarantee of freedom of worship and beliefs. It is reported that a small group of Mennonites, members of the Betzner and Sherk families, learned of Richard Beasley's tract of land, and by the end of 1800 the first permanent non-native settlement was established in what is now the City of Kitchener.

Soon afterward, a group of Mennonites pooled resources to purchase all of the unsold land from Beasley, forming the German Company Tract and dividing the lands into 128 farms of 181 hectares and 32 farms of 1.2 hectares each for distribution. At the time of the pioneer settlement, Kitchener was a land abundant with dense bush, swamps and sand hills. Streams found throughout the area would become very important in supplying the power for saw and grist mills, in what was still however a farm based economy.