It's one of those stories that makes you smile. In the late 1950s, as Alaska and Hawaii were about to become states, a teenager in Ohio supposedly stitched together a 50-star flag for a school assignment. The story goes that his design was sent to Washington and became the official flag.
The truth is less tidy. There's no official record that Robert G. Heft, the Ohio teen in the story, designed the 50-star flag. His design looked like the final flag, but so did many other submissions, and the final design had probably already been chosen by the time his arrived. A biographer who investigated concluded that the main details of the story seem to be made up.
Thousands of Designs Poured In
When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood in the 1950s, Americans got creative. More than 3,000 flag designs from the public were sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Some had 49 stars, but most had 50.
The earliest 50-star design arrived in 1953, and most came after Alaska was admitted in 1958. They ranged from simple pencil sketches to professionally made flags. With so many people suggesting rows of stars, it's no surprise that several looked like the flag we know today. The winning layout arranges the 50 stars in nine offset rows, with rows of six stars alternating with rows of five.
How the Flag Was Actually Chosen
The decision came from the top. In late 1958, the White House announced that the secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, along with the chairman of the Commission on Fine Arts, would propose new flag designs to the president. That group formally submitted designs for a 50-star flag on August 17, 1959.
Four days later, on August 21, 1959, Eisenhower signed an executive order establishing the 50-star flag. At the time, the government credited the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry with the design. The new flag flew for the first time at Fort McHenry on Independence Day, 1960.
The Man Behind the Legend
Robert Heft went on to become mayor of Napoleon, Ohio, and for years he was celebrated as the flag's designer. His submission did resemble the final flag, but so did many other informal suggestions. Biographer Alec Nevala-Lee looked closely at the story and concluded that its main details appear to be entirely fabricated.
That doesn't mean the teen never made a flag. It just means the dramatic version, where a class project single-handedly became the national flag, doesn't hold up.
Not the First Flag Legend
America's flag has inspired other popular tales. The best known is Betsy Ross, who supposedly sewed the first Stars and Stripes from a sketch by George Washington. There's no evidence for it in Washington's diaries or congressional records, and the story wasn't made public until her grandson told it in 1870, nearly a century later.
In fact, the flag evolved gradually and wasn't designed by any one person. The current version is the 27th design since 1777, and it has now been in use longer than any other.
So while the school project story may not be true, the real one is still pretty special. Thousands of ordinary Americans mailed in their ideas, all hoping to help shape the flag. In a way, it really was a team effort.
