The 17-year-old who said he designed the US flag

Who designed the U.S. flag?

Betsy Ross?

How about the widespread decades-long claim that a 17-year-old high school junior from Lancaster, Ohio, Bob Heft, made the first 50-star flag and sent it to the White House to be approved as our current stars and stripes?

“I, of course, designed the flag of our country, the current flag,” said Heft. “It’s not just a piece of cloth, it’s the fabric of America.”

This compelling and uniquely American story is told in the first episode of “Crazy America History with Eric Shawn,” now streaming on Fox Nation.

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Heft sewed his flag as part of a high school history class project. He then sent it off to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959, asking him to adopt his design as the nation’s new flag when Hawaii became the 50th state. 

Eisenhower’s chief of staff Wilton B. Persons sent Heft a letter thanking him. In an exchange of correspondence with White House officials, Heft pressed his claim that the design that the president chose was from him.

“I made and flew the first 50-star flag in the United States,” he wrote. “The flag was first flown March 7, 1959, and there are none recorded before this date…it has been displayed in the White House in Washington and also the Governor’s mansion and capital building in our state of Ohio.”

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Heft, who died in 2009, spent his life touting his claim, speaking to school groups, veterans and reporters about his making the 50-star flag.

But is his story even true?

And why haven’t you heard of Bob Heft?

He did create his 50-star flag before the design’s official adoption by the Eisenhower administration, and he was able to get his flag flown over at least 40 state capitol buildings from 1960 to 1962. The states included New York, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Utah, Nebraska and Alaska. It flew for five hours over the Texas state capitol in Austin on Oct. 5, 1960, but Gov. Price Daniel wrote “it would have been displayed all day except for a rain and high wind which started about 12 p.m.”

Ohio Gov. Michael DiSalle wrote Heft that he was “pleased to verify your story that yours was the first 50-star flag displayed in Ohio on Ohio property.”

But was Heft really the first, or were officials fooled?

It is the tale of the teenager who lived his life for Old Glory.

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And wait until you see what we do with his flag at the end of our episode!

Watch “Crazy American History with Eric Shawn,” now streaming on Fox Nation.