Richmond Naval Air Station was the largest of the eight new blimp bases built in WWII. It covered 2,100 acres, and had three 1,000-foot-long blimp hangars, instead of the usual two. At the center of the base was a large blimp landing and mooring area, now the parking lot for the Miami Zoo, which occupies the southern part of the former base. In late 1945, a hurricane swept through the area, starting a fire in one of the hangars, which spread to the others, burning them all down, and destroying all 25 of the blimps here, along with 368 military and civilian aircraft that were also on-site. Its life as a blimp base ended; however, several other users developed a presence here. An old base building, relocated to this location, is being restored and will become the Miami Military Museum and Memorial. It is next to the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, a major railway museum occupying part of the old blimp base. The railroad museum makes use of tracks that originally served the naval air station, and continued inside the hangars. The museum built sheds on top of part of the original footprint of one of the blimp hangars. Some concrete portions of the hangar survived the fire and demolition crews, and are now used by the railroad museum for storage and display. Looming above the railroad museum is a concrete tower topped by antennas. This is the only remaining column of four that once held 150-foot-tall doors - one on either end of the hangar. Other tenants of the former air station installed the antennas, taking advantage of the boost the tower provides, as one of the tallest objects around. Partially because of this tower, the air station became a significant regional federal communications complex, with several different agencies operating on-site, including the FAA, Coast Guard, Air Force, Army, and the CIA, which used facilities here to spy on the Cubans for many years, and to direct attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro’s regime in the 1960s. The CIA continued to operate its Foreign Broadcast Information Service here until just a few years ago, transmitting programming directed at Cuba. Other federal operations continue inside a substantial restricted area covering the north end of the former air station.