Last portions of the Confederate flag display removed from SC State House

Crews are finishing work to remove the final remnants of the Confederate flag display at the South Carolina State House.

The concrete pad that held the flagpole and iron fence was torn up and taken away Monday.

A number of people walked up to the site and asked workers for pieces of the concrete to take as souvenirs.

A barricade was erected around a foot-deep hole that remained next to the Confederate Soldier Monument on the north lawn of the State House.

Crews will fill the hole with soil and plant sod to return the site to its previous state before the flag was erected in 2000.

The Confederate flag was placed next to the Soldier Monument as part of a compromise to take the banner off the State House dome 15 years ago.

The flag was removed from the capitol grounds on Friday in response to the killing of nine African-American parishioners at a Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church last month in what authorities have called a hate crime.

State lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to take down the flag last week and send it to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. The flagpole was placed in storage.

The law also called for restoring the site of the flag on the State House grounds.

The Confederate flag had flown at the State House since the early 1960s.

This story was originally published July 13, 2015 at 12:03 PM.