Tillamook Blimp Site, Oregon

Tillamook Naval Air Station, on the coast west of Portland, Oregon, was established as a blimp base during WWII, one of eight new bases built at that time to defend the nation’s coast and fleet of naval ships at sea. The station had two 1,000-foot-long blimp hangars, built out of wood in 1943, which housed the eight blimps known as K-ships, the standard complement for blimp squadrons at that time. The base was decommissioned in 1948, and eventually became property of the Port of Tillamook Bay. The Port of Tillamook Bay rented the hangars to a variety of tenants over the years, who used it primarily for storage. In 1992 the hangar known as Hangar A had several tenants, including one who stored 135,000 bales of straw there. A fire started in the straw, and the hangar burned to the ground. The concrete portions of the hangar remain, including two pairs of columns that held up doors at either end of the structure. The site has been leased to a composting operation associated with the local dairy industry. Undamaged by the fire that burned down Hangar A, Hangar B has been an air museum since 1991. Inside are numerous aircraft, and WWII displays. The museum lost much of its collection in 2014, when the owner of most of the museum’s WWII aircraft opened his own museum in Madras, Oregon. The condition of the hangar, including a leaky roof, was one of his reasons for removing his collection. The roof already has two layers of corrugated metal sheathing on it, and cannot bear the weight of another layer of material, so the owners, the Port of Tillamook Bay, patch what they can. Estimates to redo the roof run as high as $15 million. It’s a big roof. The south end of the building is used for storage by a number of companies and individuals. The building is also used by the Stimson Lumber Company, who operate a lumber yard just outside the door. This is Oregon, after all.