Hoosier Legionnaire finds historic U.S. flag

An Indiana Legionnaire is now in possession of one of the most mysterious U.S. flags – which he found in one of the most prosaic places.

Paul Norton and his wife, Jennifer, were visiting friends in February at a massive military retirement community in Englewood Beach, Fla., when they decided to visit the HOAs rummage sale at a nearby church. On a table near the back, Norton found a flag in a plastic bag for sale for $15. When he took it out to look at it, he realized that it had 39 stars.

Norton is retired from both the U.S. Postal Service (38 years), and the U.S. Air Force (38 years) and Air National Guard. A vice commander at Fort Benjamin Harrison Post 510 in Indianapolis, flag history and etiquette is a passion of his – he teaches flag etiquette in local low-income schools, and he bought a number of the “Indivisible: The Story of Our Flag” bookazine over the winter to hand out.

After doing a quick Web search on his smartphone and seeing that 39-star flags were selling for up to $489,000, Norton snapped up the flag – then showed his phone to the cashier. Given the size of the community, there is “no way to know who donated it for sure,” he says; one sale worker told him it may have been stored in the drawer of an elderly woman. Part of what makes the sale so big is that a lot of the items come from younger relatives cleaning out the houses of deceased homeowners.

Even determining just how old the flag is will be a challenge; Norton intends to take it to an expert appraiser. The two most likely possibilities are that it is either from 1875-1876, when Colorado was admitted as a state and many expected Utah to join it – leading to advance printings of 39 stars to reflect both – only for Utah to be denied; or from 1889, when many expected the Dakota Territory to be admitted as one state; again leading to advance printings of 39 stars – only for it to be split into North and South Dakota.

Norton is considering his options on what to do with the flag. Wherever it ends up, it will remain a commemoration of the growth of our nation over time.