CLAWSON, Michigan — Jane Miles leaned over a worktable inside American Flag & Banner Co., carefully cutting and folding a fire-damaged American flag before placing it inside a wooden display case for a customer.

Across the room, the store's only two other employees were also busy. One was helping customers browse flags and the other was stitching a special "250" emblem onto a commemorative flag ahead of the nation's upcoming milestone.

As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary in July, Metro Detroit flag businesses are seeing growing demand for the Stars and Stripes and other patriotic displays to mark the nation's semiquincentennial amid economic uncertainty at home and a war with Iran overseas.

"It's really a luxury item," said Miles of purchasing an American flag, with Betsy Ross-styled flags selling for $70 in her shop. "If you're an American and you want to fly one, you're giving up something else. You're not buying that second pair of shoes at TJ Maxx. You're going to buy a flag. It's a choice, and it's a patriotic choice, and lots of Americans are making it."

Miles has been helping Americans make that choice for nearly five decades. Her store, American Flag & Banner, has been in business for more than a century. Founded in Detroit in 1917, the business has operated in Clawson for about 40 years. Miles and her husband took ownership 48 years ago after what she thought would be a routine job interview.

Responding to a help-wanted advertisement for a seamstress in The Detroit News, Miles met the then-owner Robert Erdman, who instead suggested the couple purchase the business. Miles had an art degree and knew how to sew. Her husband had a business background from the University of Michigan.

"We've been doing it for 48 years," Miles said. "So I'm pretty good at it."

Creating a Betsy Ross

Over the years, Miles said the business has seen peaks and valleys. In the months leading up to America's 250th anniversary, there has been a strong peak. In high demand at the store are both flags featuring the officially authorized America250 design, and Betsy Ross-styled flags displaying a "250" emblem at the center of a circle of 13 stars.

The Betsy Ross design's circle of 13 stars represents the original colonies and has long been associated with the nation's founding. However, Ted Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association, said the popular story that Betsy Ross designed the first American flag is likely a myth.

"She may have sewn one of the first flags, but the Betsy Ross myth is just that. It's a myth," Kaye said. "Francis Hopkinson, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the designer of the Great Seal of the United States, is very likely the designer of the American flag."

To create one of these Betsy Ross-style flags, American Flag & Banner employees take an original Betsy Ross flag and sew the 250 emblem onto it. The process takes roughly 15 to 20 minutes per flag, turning each one into a handcrafted tribute to the nation's 250th birthday.

“We're getting really good at it,” Miles said. “I trace them in 20 seconds, pin them in another 10 and it probably takes six or seven minutes to sew one. Trimming it is the lengthiest thing about it.”

The store sells about 10 commemorative flags a day while producing around four daily in-house, keeping the three-person operation busy as the anniversary approaches. Manager Emily Dancy, who helps customers daily at the Clawson store, said she has noticed a growing sense of excitement as the country's 250th birthday approaches.

"More people are coming in," Dancy said. "They're being a lot more patriotic because it's 250 years, and I think Fourth of July parties are going to be a lot bigger and better because of it."

Made in America matters

Similar interest is being seen at Klee Mfg. & Dist. Co., another family-owned business in Flint, Michigan, whose roots trace back to 1966. Karri Carter Johnson from Klee Mfg. & Dist. Co. said the company began after her grandfather accepted a sewing machine as payment for repair work and started using it to make flags and banners.

The business no longer manufactures, but Johnson and her sister still sell flags from the same building purchased by their grandparents more than six decades ago.

“I like that we're an integral part in celebrating the anniversary," Johnson said. "People can come in and get their flags and be proud to fly them and know that they were made in the United States. We've been around forever, and most people always know where we are and where they can get their quality."

For both businesses, the anniversary has renewed interest in where American flags are actually made. While many flags sold through large retailers are imported, both American Flag & Banner and Klee Mfg. & Dist. Co. specialize in products made in the United States and say domestic manufacturing remains an important part of their business.

"There's just something a little strange about buying a flag that symbolizes freedom and the United States that was made in China," Johnson said. "Something with that much symbolism is definitely something you want to buy that was made by someone in the United States, as opposed to it just being mass-manufactured in China."

Few countries display and celebrate their national flag as prominently as the United States, Kaye said: "We are one of the most flag-waving countries of all. Few countries have as many flags going as we do."

That connection to the flag may become even more visible during the nation's 250th anniversary celebration. "I believe that Americans will unite under the flag in times of commemoration and challenge," Kaye said. "I predict we will see flag use independent of what political sides people take."

For Miles, the current surge in demand stands apart from many of the moments that have driven flag sales in the past in a positive way: "When America gets scared, people buy a flag. This one's fun."

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