Published: June 26, 2008 10:22 pm            

Whitfield OKs new seal

Whitfield County recently approved a new county seal after a vote on a proposed design was postponed in May to give a local graphic designer time to offer suggestions at no cost.

The county’s seal heading into this year was similar to the black and white Georgia state seal that first appeared in the mid-1950s.

The first attempt at a new design sought to blend elements of the county’s history using color. In the center of that proposed seal was a charging soldier who was surrounded by a train, cow, bicyclist, roll of carpet, cannon and American Indian headdress.

The seal recently approved includes most of those elements (an arrowhead has been substituted for the headdress, and a chicken and grain have been added to the cow), but the soldier has been removed from the center of the seal, which now features an outline of the county highlighted by what appears to be a gleaming sun rising over a mountain. This seal features “softer” colors of light blue and green, while the earlier proposal utilized darker hues of rust and blue. In another tip to the county’s Civil War heritage, swords have been added to the outside of this seal.

The reasoning behind the symbols include that Indian tribes occupied Whitfield County for hundreds of years (arrowhead); the county was the site of several Civil War battles in Dug Gap, Rocky Face Ridge and Tunnel Hill (the swords and cannon); the railroad has been an integral part of the county’s commerce for some 150 years (train); the county still has farming roots (cow, chicken and grain), but has grown to become the center of the floorcovering industry (roll of carpet); and one of the county’s emerging industries is tourism (bicyclist).

County officials asked for public input for a seal design and advertised a comment period on the first seal design on the county’s Web site www.whitfieldcountyga.com.

        

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