Flag Day created by Illinois dentist

By Tom Emery

An oft-overlooked holiday on the calendar is Flag Day, June 14, which celebrates the official establishment of the American flag. The occasion was first created by an Illinois dentist.

Bernard Cigrand, a Chicagoland resident who taught in the Dental Schools of both Northwestern and the University of Illinois, is credited with the first observance of Flag Day, in 1885. It was only the first instance in a lifelong devotion to annual celebrations of the U.S. flag.

Then, Cigrand was a 19-year-old instructor for $40 a month in a one-room schoolhouse near Fredonia, Wis., north of Milwau...