David Heineman was born on his family's Detroit homestead on Woodward Avenue in 1865.
The son of a Jewish-German immigrant, Heineman graduated from the old Detroit High School in 1883 and went on to study philosophy and law at the University of Michigan. He was also elected to the state Legislature and served time as Detroit’s controller.
But something was missing.
"Being very involved with the city, he realized the city needed to have its own flag, and it had to be a very representative flag. It had to represent the city through the seal, which was already well established by that time," said Detroit Historical Museum senior curator Joel Stone. "But it also had to be colorful and had to draw on the city's history."
Heineman's original concept for the flag was sketched on a piece of paper in 1907. The sketch is part of the museum's collection.
The flag was first flown in 1908, but it was not officially adopted as the city's flag until 1948.
"When he designed this, he decided that he wanted to incorporate the city's full history," Stone said.
The flag features the fleur-de-lis to represent France, who founded Detroit in 1701. The gold lions are for Great Britain, who controlled the city from 1760-1796.
"The seal in the middle represents the old Detroit, Detroit that was lost during the great fire in 1805. And then the rebirth of Detroit a new and a growing town after the fire," Stone said.
Stone said one of the women represents the loss, and the other is pointing to the fact that there are still places to go and grow.
The two Latin mottos on the flag are Speramus Meliora and Resurget Cineribus. They translate to, "We hope for better things" and "It will rise from the ashes."
"Couple of things I really like about this flag is that it represents 300 and some years of Detroit history in the corners. It represents that European-based history," Stone said. "One of the things that's not so good is there's no representation of the Native Americans who are here for hundreds of years before that. So, some day, the city may want to revisit this, but the seal itself is probably the most important part. Traders are resilient people, and that's exactly what the seal says you can knock us down but you're not going to keep us down because we always rebuild a new Detroit. We will rise from the ashes."
David Heineman by the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan