Spaceport America hosts cleaning of mammoth US flag

When the Great American Flag needs to be unfurled for a cleaning, an enormous area is required. The 46-year-old banner takes up nearly 2 acres.

This month, the nonprofit Great American Flag Preservation Group transported the 86,000-square-foot flag from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all the way to Spaceport America in Sierra County for a thorough cleaning ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Decades had passed since its last cleaning because of the logistics and volunteers required. The flag was last unfurled in 2019 to assess its condition. Prior to that, it was displayed at the Jennerstown Speedway in Pennsylvania shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The cleaning operation at Spaceport America required two days, 10,000 gallons of water, a crane and dozens of volunteers to unfold the flag, scrub it all over by hand and refurl it last weekend in front of the hangar nicknamed “the Gateway to Space.”

Like many a first-time visitor to the region, the flag and its guardian, Josh Dorfman, soon learned about springtime in southern New Mexico when they were beset by a dust storm on Sunday.

It was a harrowing 30 minutes for Dorfman, the Preservation Group’s cofounder, who was alone as the storm blew over the desert basin and the massive, freshly-scrubbed flag.

“I was the only person on the tarmac and I was just watching the flag fold up all over itself, getting covered in dust after we had just spent two days cleaning it,” he said in an interview. “It was a pretty powerless moment. There was absolutely nothing I could do to keep the dust off of this thing.”

The spaceport’s fire department soon arrived with buckets to hold the fabric down. There was little risk of it blowing away, however, as the flag weighs more than 7 tons.

It is not the largest flag in the world — that one is in Qatar — nor even the largest U.S. flag. That distinction goes to the 505-by-255-foot Superflag in Florida, which is larger in area albeit much lighter: When it was briefly displayed over Hoover Dam in 1996 it sustained major damage from the wind.

Arguably, the Great American Flag boasts the most eventful life. It has been unfurled and displayed over a dozen times in eight states and marked several historical moments.

In 1976, Len Silverfine, a professor at the University of Vermont, proposed making a flag of unprecedented size for the American Bicentennial. A star-spangled banner measuring 71,000 square feet was manufactured by a sail company in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and displayed on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City for that year’s July 4th celebrations. While it was built to withstand high wind and saltwater, Dorfman said it was nonetheless “shredded” when it was taken down.

Undeterred, Silverfine assembled a coalition of experts to design a flag that was larger still and made from industrial polyester fabric that could stretch and allow air flow. The result was the Great American Flag, measuring 410-by-211 feet, first displayed in 1980 at Evansville (Indiana) Airport in honor of American hostages that were being held in Iran.

Silverfine donated the flag to the federal government in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan accepted it during a Flag Day ceremony on the White House Ellipse. In his remarks that day, Reagan portrayed the flag as a monument to the American spirit:

“If you look out at that grand flag stretched behind us, you can see what we think of ourselves, our country, and our future,” the president said. “That flag was made by and for men and women who still know how to dream great dreams and who still believe they can make their dreams come true. That giant banner was not created by a timid nation, but by a bold one. Not a stitch was sewn in confusion or doubt.”

But there was little glory for this Old Glory under government ownership and in 2001 the Great American Flag was auctioned off on the 4th of July. It was purchased by Josh’s father, Ted Dorfman, a U.S. Army veteran from Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

The Preservation Group’s mission is to maintain the flag as a marker for future events of national significance and, perhaps, find it a permanent future home, according to the organization’s website. 

Dorfman said finding the right location for cleaning the flag, with sufficient space and security, took six years. “The spaceport was the first organization that checked every box and was willing to help,” he said.

The spaceport hosted the operation and helped get out the word for local volunteers who turned out from as far as Clovis.

“New Mexicans love their country as much as anyone,” Spaceport America director Scott McLaughlin told the Journal. “This was a chance to support this nonprofit and the flag to get ready for the country’s 250th birthday, and for us to show our patriotism.”

And notwithstanding a blast of dust, the flag was refurled and packed up for its return trip safe and sound.

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.