"Schools in the Continental US for as much as twenty years after the event maintained their classroom 48 star flags as battalions of mathematicians went to the mats to determine how many rows and columns it would take to line up 50 stars on the blue field of the flag."

robomatic, I think you are mistaken.

Go to

The Designer of Flags

and you'll see that even the 50-star flag design was ready *before* Alaska and Hawaii were accepted as states. Alaska flew its 49-star for only a short time because Hawaii became a state just a year later.

I lived in Oregon at the time and I remember when the new flags came on.