LANCASTER, Ohio, June 25 (DC Times Online) — For travelers who like visiting state capitols, Bob Heft’s story offers a neat piece of American history. Heft, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, said he turned a high school assignment into the 50-star U.S. flag, then helped get that flag flown at capitol buildings from Texas to Alaska.
How the project started
Heft said he made the flag in 1958 for a history-class project at his Ohio high school. At the time, the United States was about to add new stars to the flag because Alaska and Hawaii were becoming states. Heft’s own account, told later in StoryCorps and repeated in other reports, says he sent his design to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959 and asked that it be adopted as the nation’s new flag.
Heft later wrote that he had made and flown the first 50-star flag in the United States and that it was first flown on March 7, 1959. The sources do not include full archival proof of that claim, so it remains part of Heft’s account.
What happened at school
StoryCorps says Heft’s teacher, Stanley Pratt, gave the project a B- and told him, ‘If you don’t like the grade, get it accepted in Washington then come back and see me.’ Heft later said he got a call inviting him to Washington, D.C., for the flag adoption ceremony, and that the teacher then changed the grade to an A.
Ohio Magazine and other retellings say the 50-star flag became the official U.S. flag on July 4, 1960.
Why the flag turned into a travel story
The part that matters for visitors is what happened next. Fox News reported that Heft later said his flag was flown over at least 40 state capitol buildings between 1960 and 1962. The states named in that report include New York, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Utah, Nebraska and Alaska.
One of the clearest examples is Texas. Fox News quoted Gov. Price Daniel as saying the flag was flown over the Texas state capitol in Austin for five hours on Oct. 5, 1960, and that it would have stayed up all day except for rain and high wind.
Fox News also quoted Ohio Gov. Michael DiSalle as saying he was ‘pleased to verify your story that yours was the first 50-star flag displayed in Ohio on Ohio property.’
What is known, and what is not
The exact number of places where the flag was flown is not settled in the published accounts. Some later retellings say it was shown at many more capitols and even at U.S. embassies, but the underlying records are not included in the sources used here. What is clear is that Heft’s handmade flag moved far beyond one classroom and became part of a national flag story.
Why travelers may care
For a traveler, the practical takeaway is simple: state capitol buildings are not just government offices. They can also be history stops. A visit to a capitol in Austin, Columbus or another state can connect a trip to the story of how the 50-star flag came into use across the country. In Heft’s telling, a school project in Ohio ended up on display in public places from coast to coast.
