The story behind El Dorado's veterans banners
- Olivia Malanchuk
- Apr 3
- 2 min read
The faces of El Dorado’s hometown heroes have lined the streets of downtown for years now, but where do they come from?
The Veteran Banner Program has been a project of El Dorado Main Street since 2017. El Dorado Main Street is an organization dedicated to enhancing downtown identity and heritage. Longtime Main Street volunteer, board member and current interim director Craig Yaryan is the driving force behind the banner program.
“The banner program is a way of honoring veterans,” says Yaryan. “My dad went into World War II at a very young age. His mother was an original Rosie the Riveter. The banners are just a way of honoring some of these people.”
Proudly displayed every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, each banner features the name, photograph, branch, rank and years served of an El Dorado veteran. The collection of banners is impressive, representing every branch of service and spanning from the Civil War to current day.
Each banner costs $199 plus $25 annually for maintenance. Banners are custom ordered and specially coated to be UV resistant, with wind resistant light pole brackets. This is not a fundraiser for El Dorado Main Street. Rather, it is a passion project for a group dedicated to honoring the veterans of El Dorado.
“The people that sponsor these banners — the banners actually belong to them,” says Yaryan. “We’re the stewards of the banners. We clean them and store them individually. It means a lot to the people that buy them.”
The banner program isn’t just about honoring veterans. It’s a step toward preserving the stories of El Dorado’s servicemembers. Yaryan is working to develop a digital companion book to offer background on each veteran, and he is seeking photos and stories of veterans in the banner program. Anyone with a veteran banner can send more information to be included in the book to veteranbanners@eldoradomainstreet.org.
“If I showed you some of the stories of these veterans, you would be shocked at what you saw,” Yaryan explains. “It’s amazing. They’re all unbelievable stories. My vision is to get the program up to 300 banners.”
El Dorado Main Street currently displays 86 banners. This year marks the Semiquincentennial of the United States, otherwise known as America 250, making it an especially opportune time to sponsor a veteran banner.
Learn more and sponsor a banner at eldoradobannerprogram.com.
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