Steamboat Plants 10,000 Flags for 9/11's 25th Anniversary

Steamboat Springs —The air in Steamboat Springs usually smells of pine resin and the faint, metallic tang of river water moving over stones. But this coming week, that familiar sensory backdrop will be punctuated by something else entirely: the sharp, synthetic scent of nylon and the visual weight of ten thousand American flags. It is a counterintuitive image for a mountain town, this sea of red, white, and blue planted not on a battlefield, but on the manicured front lawn of Yampa Valley Bank. Yet that is exactly what will happen beginning at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10, as the community prepares for the 25th anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington.

The obvious take is that this is a local event, a small-town nod to a national tragedy. But if you look closely at the history of the 9/11 Never Forget Project, which launched here in 2015, you see something more profound: a bridge built across thousands of miles and decades. The project was started by Kyle Case, then a freshman at Yampa Valley High School, with the help of his mother, Laura Case. According to Claire Sollars, an organizer, the first year saw 3,000 flags planted. That number has grown every single year since. It is no longer just about the 2,977 who died on that Tuesday in September. It is a rolling tally of the thousands who have since perished from 9/11-related health issues caused by the toxic fumes released when the towers collapsed. The flags are a living ledger of grief that refuses to end on a calendar date.

For those planning to attend the flag-planting, parking is directed at Freshies Restaurant on Trafalgar Drive. The logistics are straightforward, but the emotional weight is not. Following the event, Yampa Valley High School students will pull and store the flags, a ritual that keeps the project in the hands of the next generation.

The following day, on Friday, Sept. 11 at 5 p.m., the focus shifts to a memorial ceremony at the Yampa River Botanic Park. This event is hosted by Mary Ann Ninger, a longtime local resident who will hold the service rain or shine. Ninger and her husband, Perry, are originally from the New York area. Their connection to the World Trade Center is not abstract; it is woven into their family history and their daily lives before they moved to the Rockies. Ninger’s father worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which constructed and operated the towers. She recalls him driving their family to a high point in New Jersey just to watch the progress of the construction, describing his pride in the "giant monoliths rising out of lower Manhattan."

Ninger worked in the towers themselves during the late 1970s and 1980s, a period she remembers as a time when the complex was "a city unto itself." When the attacks happened, she and her family were devastated. They had moved to Steamboat just two months prior, a proximity that made the distance feel both vast and painfully small.

Now, as she prepares for what she expects to be a larger crowd than usual due to the quarter-century milestone, Ninger points to something that has emerged from the trauma: tradition. She notes that these gatherings allow people to share stories and remember what they have in common as Americans, a way to "bridge divides" in a spirit of unity. It is a reminder that memory is not just an act of looking back, but a practice of holding together.

The ceremony will take place on the grounds of the botanic park, where the river runs close and loud. As the crowd gathers on that Friday evening, the sound of the water will provide a constant, rhythmic counterpoint to the silence of remembrance. The flags on the bank will stand in rows, a stark geometric pattern against the green of the valley, waiting for the wind to ripple them into motion.