Blackburn Flag – A Third Generation Business

Only a small percentage of family businesses make it past the third generation. What makes Blackburn Flag different? Under the leadership of Jim Blackburn CEO, we strive to be a partner not only with our customers, but our community. It’s a partnership built on the strength and stability that only a local, family-owned business can offer.

We’ve been doing it for more than 70 years!

 

Our Nebraska Town is Your Community!

Blackburn Flag is a worldwide leader in marking flags. However, our roots are located in the center of the United States – Neligh, Nebraska. For over 70 years, we’ve dedicated ourselves to creating quality products for international distribution, right here in our community that we love, and we’re proud to share our community with you!

 

Here’s a little bit about our company and community.

A Little History from Neligh, NE, USA

It’s an American dream to start and build a company. And our story started with our grandfather, E.A. “Bud” Blackburn. In a basement in the northeast corner of Nebraska, he came up with the first marking flag machine to solve a problem. His uncle, Ray Blackburn (a surveyor), asked him if he could come up with a machine to attach a piece of cloth or paper to a piece of wire instead of using the wooden lathe stakes that was the current way to mark while surveying at that time.

Bud, a farmer by trade but a “tinkerer” at heart, would over the next couple of years, invent the first marking flag machine to mass produce marking flags using a small piece of vinyl attached to a wire staff. From there, the rest is history.

Blackburn has sold over 6 billion flags todate.

Learn more about the Blackburn Flag Story.