On the Fourth of July, don’t just think about flags. Consider the pole.

The Fourth of July is a day for flags, of course, but consider another part of the patriotic display that’s taken for granted — the flagpole.

It’s not the most interesting thing in the urban landscape. Aside from the top — maybe it’s a ball, perhaps it has an eagle — it’s just a glorified rod. Initially, it was made of wood and then with steel when the industrial revolution began. These days, even anodized aluminum and fiberglass are used for poles. Here are three interesting examples with their own stories.

It’s hard to say which flagpole gets the most eyeballs, but one of the most viewed must surely be the pole atop Minneapolis City Hall at 350 S. 5th St. It’s a tall point on a famous prominent tower. How tall? The authoritative answer is 400 feet at its tip.

But some would dispute that. Over the years, descriptions of its height have waxed and waned, possibly because no one’s gone up there with a tape measure for precise statistics. Consider a 1921 Minneapolis Tribune story about the fellow — C.J. Penwell — who had the unenviable job of painting the pole.

“Two years ago,” the story says, “he painted the ball and flagpole on the Minneapolis City Hall, performing some of his work 409 feet above the street. And when he had finished that, he dropped over the side of the tower to paint the faces of the clocks.”

Penwell said he did not feel any fear while doing the work.

He made news again in 1929 when he shinnied to the top of the pole once more.

“Shinnying up a slender, swaying flagstaff, 417 feet above the city of Minneapolis, C.J. Penwell, Minneapolis’ daredevil steeplejack, today unscrewed a 90-pound gilt ball from the flagstaff atop the City Hall and brought it down to give it its first coat of paint in two years.

“A stiff breeze was blowing on top of the courthouse tower as Penwell started his precarious ascent of the 60-foot flagstaff.”

“Aw, this ain’t bad,” the steeplejack grinned. “There isn’t any chance of anything going wrong.”

Stories about flag and pole repair in the 1990s put the tower’s height at 343 feet, and the flagpole’s height at 56 feet. Add in some inches left out of the description and you get 400 feet. It’s not the tallest point in the city, but the tower commands your attention close up or from a distance, and the eye naturally follows the spire to the ball atop the pole. If you live here, you’ve seen it.

That is the George Washington Gateway Flagpole at 1st Street and Hennepin Avenue S.

The Daughters of the American Revolution presented the flagpole and its fancy base on July 4, 1917, and the story made front-page news, with an inauspicious note.

“A mark of the emotion, quietly displayed, aroused by the ceremony, was the case of William Esterly, quartermaster of the Navy recruiting station, who aided in raising the flag. His finger was caught in the wires and as the sailors pulled away, it cut the flesh to the bone, but he did not halt them.”

The installation of the flagpole was regarded as a sign of new life for the tired old Gateway neighborhood. Urban renewal in the 1960s would erase almost every building in the area, and sever the joining of Hennepin and Nicollet, but the flagpole and base remained.

You can still read its praise of George Washington on the foot: “He built his monument in our hearts, he united us under one flag.” It also says, less concisely, “vindicate our rights with firmness and cultivate peace with sincerity.”

As late as 1961 there were four metal eagles on the foot, but they’ve since flown off.

Bonus fact: The base was designed by Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in his Washington, D.C., memorial, and the Quadriga atop the State Capitol in St. Paul.

The current claim to tallest flagpole is at the Miller Marine boat dealership in St. Cloud, which boasts a 160-foot pole. It went up in 2020. The previous record holder was the Minnesota Truck Headquarters pole, also in St. Cloud. That was 150 feet tall and was erected in 2019.

Huge flags and vehicle dealerships have a long relationship, if only because enormous flags on tall poles catch the eye of passersby. Massive flags work for restaurants, too. Think Perkins. Wyman Nelson, the Minnesota franchisee responsible for the chain’s expansion in the 1970s, put up a tall flagpole to display Old Glory outside his new corporate headquarters on Hwy. 100 and Eden Avenue in Edina, and big flags have been a Perkins signature ever since.

Not at the HQ building, though; it was demolished a few years ago, and no flag flies on the spot now.

Those are some notables, but of course there are so many more, including the humble flagpoles in small-town parks, waiting for the Fourth, waiting for the ropes and pulleys to work and hoist the flag to the top. We could probably learn something from the pole. It’s probably proud and content to do its job, but never thinks it’s the thing people are saluting.