Local man continues Sept. 11 flag replacement ceremony on US-50 near Carson City
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 12:21pm
Chris Sneed has climbed a rock off of US-50 to place a flag every year since September 11, 2001. He replaces the previous year's flag on Sep. 10 so the day that will forever be engrained in our history starts with a new flag.
As the television at Spitzen Lumber in Incline Village was showing the planes hitting the Trade Center towers in New York City, Chris was inside the store getting supplies for a job he was doing at the time for Granite Construction.
"I said to myself, this is not good," says Chris. "I knew then that everything about all of our lives was about to change."
As he turned to leave the store he saw some flags by the door and bought two of them. The crew closed up the job site for the day and headed home to their families.
Chris was driving home to Carson City when he looked at the big rock formation off US-50 Spooner, one he'd passed often, and decided to climb it. Chris had been rock climbing since the age of 15 and knew then and there that he had to climb.
"I took a moment, stopped, climbed up, and put one of the flags from Spitsen in a crevice in the rock," said Chris.
The next day, back on the job, Chris's coworkers said to him, 'Hey, did you see that flag on the highway?'. When he told them he did it, Chris said they appreciated it, and that it was awesome.
He made the display more permanent and bought a bigger flag, the type made for homes with hollow tube holders. That turned out to not be strong enough for the location and had to replace it a few times.
Chris later worked for South Tahoe Public Utility District and custom-built a flag holder with a steel pole to fit in a crack-up on the rock. Since then he said he doesn't have to tend to it very often and only once has it blown down in all the years since its placement.
Now, every year, a ceremony is held to replace the flag.
On Saturday, Chris was joined by about 100 people on US-50 for the changing of the flag ceremony. The outside lane was closed to traffic and people pulled off the highway to watch Chris climb up the rock and replace the flag. Area bagpiper Sean Cummings played as the new flag was placed. A motorcycle club rode over six hours as they do annually to join in.
"If nothing else, when 9-11 happened it brought the nation together, the only positive thing to happen," Chris said in 2020.
