Here are some oldies -
The patches that are teardrop shaped or pie piece shaped were used from 1957 until November
1981. The old style patches had a district number or specialty section letter(s) in the center. There were 41
districts before Superintendent O.W. Wilson reorganized the department after he took the helm in 1960. There is a map
on Page 2 showing the District boundaries for all but 3 of these 41 police Districts. This map also shows the boundaries
for the 6 Area Headquarters - now, there are only 5 of these.
Patches for Patrol officers used the blue letters, blue border, as shown above and at the top of
the next page.
Sergeants, Lieutenants and Captains used the blue letters, yellow border (see next page).
Above that - the exempt ranks - used yellow letters and yellow border (see next page).
These color schemes continue today with the current 8-sided patches.
All old and new styles in all ranks had cloth patches for shirts, leather patches for leather jackets
and felt patches for the wool coats ("reefer coats"). In the pictures, where you see the same district number more than
once, that means there is the cloth version shown first, plus the leather or felt variations shown after that.
For some reason, some of the felt patches I have are noticeably darker than the cloth or leather patches. You can see
that some of the leather patches reflect the light from the camera flash.
In late 1981, the 8-sided patches were adopted and are still in use.
The 10 inch blue and red star stickers shown at the top were used on the old 3-wheelers, and the
red one is the older version. Note these are peel-off stickers rather than water-based decals. Door stickers were
17 1/2 inches and used blue & gold from 1960 to 1968, and used blue & white from 1969 to 1975.
