The American 50-Star Flag Design Was Created by a Schoolboy

The American flag is the pride of Americans and it plays a big role in their lives and culture. The current U.S national flag design is the 27th and it was a result of a school project. Robert G. Heft of Lanchester created the 50-star U.S national flag when he was 17 years old. Heft was a junior high school student when he created the 50-star flag design national flag.

Who Made the First American Flag with 50 Stars?

In 1958, Heft’s history teacher asked his class students to redesign the flag. Heft used his parents’ 48-star antique flag and added a new piece of broadcloth and arranged the 50 stars on a blue background in alternating horizontal rows which he cut of applique material. He placed six stars on five rows and five stars on four rows. He also added seven alternating horizontal red and six white which represent the original 13 colonies. Above all, during that time there were only 48 states in America but a discussion was going on that Alaska and Hawaii might join the union soon. Heft uses three colors in the flag- red, white, and blue which represent respectively courage, purity, and justice.  

50-Star Flag History

It is said that it took more than 12 hours to cut all the white stars from the iron material and to paste the stars in the piece of cloth and sew the stars to his parent’s 48-star American flag. The placement of the star made the 50-star flag design unique and beautiful. When Heft brought it to school his teacher was unimpressed and gave a B- grade for the flag, saying that the flag design lacked originality. The teacher also criticized him for placing too many stars in the flag and told him that you don’t even know how many states we have. Heft was worried about his grades, so the teacher said if you don’t like the grade, get it approved in Washington and I might change Heft agreed and made an agreement with his teacher that if his 50-star flag design accepted as an official flag by the Government, he would give a better grade for his project. Two weeks later he folded his 50-star flag and peddled to the U.S Rep. Walter H. Moeller gave his flag to congressmen and pleaded with them to take it to Washington.

Two years later, as heft predicted Hawaii and Alaska joined as the fiftieth states. The 50-star flag design was chosen as the official flag of America from 1,500 designs that were given to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Heft got a call from the President and he invited him to the White House for the flag adopting ceremony. And yeah, Heft’s teacher later changed his project’s grade to an A. 

Interesting Facts about the 50-Star Flag and its Designer

• Heft was the only person in 1500 to ship a stitched flag to Washington D.C
• His 50-star flag design became the official flag in 1960
• Heft served as a mayor of Napoleon, Ohio.
• He became a highly regarded motivational speaker.
• He visited the white house 14 times
• Heft’s 50 star flag design was the twenty-seventh official flag of the United States.
• The present American flag is the one to have lasted more than 50 years.
• Heft also designed a 51- star flag in advance if a new state joins the United States.