A Larger Flag and a Restored Flagpole at the Historic Courthouse
Lewis County Facilities crew members restored the flagpole on the Historic Courthouse in Chehalis this year and raised a larger American flag on it. The county plans to fly the larger flag every year from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Commissioner Sean Swope proposed the larger flag as part of the county’s America 250 observance. The new flag measures 12 by 18 feet, up from the 6-by-10-foot flag that usually flies there. The Lewis County Board of County Commissioners marked the nation’s 250th birthday at the courthouse on July 7, 2026, with a reading of the Declaration of Independence and the dedication of founding document replicas on the first floor. The county had the flag by then, and Facilities Director Alex Murray said the plan expanded from a single occasion to a season that covers Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day.
The flagpole needed work before it could hold a larger flag. It stands on the roof of the courthouse, which was built in 1927 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. The pole was designed to lower on a pivot with a winch, so crew members can reach the rope without climbing out onto the roof. At some point, the pole had been bolted in place so it could no longer lower, and the cable to the winch had been cut. The original winch had also seized.
The problem became clear when the halyard, the rope that raises and lowers the flag, broke. The flag stayed attached and hung down the north side of the courthouse. A bucket truck could not reach that far, and a ladder was not a safe option. “It was very problematic,” Murray said.
TJ Snodderly, the maintenance tech lead, found a company to restore the original winch, took it there and worked with them through the process. Mel Coon, a senior maintenance technician, and Tommy Dembinski, a maintenance technician, freed the old bolts and prepared the pole to be lowered. The crew also cleaned the pole. The winch is now restored, and the pole lowers as it was designed to.
The Facilities crew chose the largest flag that would suit the pole and still hang clear of the building when lowered to half-staff. Murray said the county expects to get two to four years out of each flag before buying another.
“We didn’t just fix the problem of not having a flag,” Murray said. “We restored the flagpole.” He said the work was done by county employees, and that it gave the crew something different from routine jobs such as unclogging toilets and changing electrical ballasts.
The crew took the flag down after Labor Day and will store it until next Memorial Day.