Fluttering in the wind above Interstate 75 greeting thousands of visitors each day to the state is a large 1956 Georgia flag.

It flies on a donated 90-foot pole on land at Hoover and Fowler roads near Boynton Drive. Local resident James Mashburn provided the space in late 2005.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans camps of Ringgold, Chickamauga, Trenton and Lafayette maintain the flag, which is replaced twice yearly.

According to Tom Poteet, former commander of the Joseph McConnell SCV Camp in Ringgold, the clubs share the costs of replacing the flags and the electricity needed to illuminate the pole.

During the flag’s most recent placement, rather than raising the flag by normal means, a crane rose up the 90 feet and a man replaced the 20x30 foot flag for a second time in just one week. This swift action by the SCV came after someone not only stole a new $650 flag but also vandalized the mechanism on the pole that raises the flag.

The police report reflects that Mashburn estimated about $1,000 worth of damage to the pole was done sometime between 6 p.m. on Jan. 16 and 6 p.m. on Jan. 17.

John Culpepper, former commander and current treasurer of the John Ingraham SCV Camp in Chickamauga, said the effort to display the stolen flag was an $8,000 project.

“We took the money we raised and put that up as a memorial to Georgia’s Confederate veterans,” he said. “The flag that’s there is the only flag that’s going to fly. It was adopted as a memorial to the Georgia Confederate veterans in 1956 and flew over the state for 50 years.

“We are not using this for a political message,” he added. “It is not a protest about losing that flag. That doesn’t have anything to do with it. It is just to honor our Georgia Confederate ancestors and their families.”

Culpepper said the flag honors not only the great grandfathers who were soldiers but also all the families that struggled through those four years of the Civil War.

“We do this through the monies we get out off donations and by selling t-shirts, selling cokes at events or hotdogs or whatever we can do to raise a dime,” he said. “In one month we had to purchase $1,300 worth of flags. We will keep on.

“When a group of guys gets out and tries to beat the bushes to do projects like this and someone gets that flag its just a sad situation,” he said.

Culpepper said the Northwest Georgia SCV project is not part of the state SCV Division’s “Flags over Georgia.”

Poteet said that similar efforts are underway in other states to display flags at the entrances to the states that formerly made up the Confederacy. He said SCV sponsors in Florida and Alabama fly the Confederate battle flag.

“I sleep a little sounder knowing no one can steal our flag now,” he said.

The group decided to not repair the raising and lowering mechanism on the pole thus requiring any future thieves to scale the 90-foot pole.

“People need to know this does not mean hate,” said Wanda Reynolds, one supporter whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy.

Poteet said so many families in Georgia and throughout the South had ancestors in war.

“We honor Confederate veterans for what they did,” he said. “We were invaded in the South by a Northern Army and the veterans were called to protect their homeland.”