U. S. Naval Air Station (Blimp Base)

The hangar was the point of the place. It ran 1,000 feet long, 300 wide and more than 200 high, built to shelter six airships, and the Navy put about $10 million into it. After the war it kept earning. The government sold the base in 1949 for $143,777, and the Commodity Credit Corporation stored rice in the shed. In 1951, during the Korean War, a contractor converted it to remanufacture half-tracks and tanks. Hurricane Carla's damage in 1961 made repair too costly, and the hangar was torn down the next year.

What the plaque says

U. S. Naval Air Station (Blimp Base) (Seven-tenths mile south) In an effort to defend U. S. coasts and shipping lanes against German submarine activity during World War II, the U. S. Navy established bases to house huge lighter-than-air (LTA) craft, also known as blimps. With the ability to hover above a target, the blimps were uniquely qualified for coastal defense and observation. Because of its site on the flat Texas coastal plain, Hitchcock was chosen as the location for one of the nine new blimp bases. Construction began in 1942, and the facility was commissioned on May 22, 1943. The resulting military personnel build-up caused an economic boom in the community. The Hitchcock base consisted of forty-seven buildings, including a massive hangar to house six blimps, administration buildings, warehouses, living quarters, and recreational facilities. Aircraft from the base, in addition to their regular patrolling duties, were also used to assist with hurricane relief efforts and war bond drives. In 1944, after the blimps were no longer needed, the Hitchcock base was redesignated for other purposes. Following the war some of the buildings were used by private interests, and after hurricane damage in 1961 the blimp hangar was razed. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Galveston Island State Park — 12 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Space Center Houston — 14 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 15 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• Moody Mansion — 15 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

More markers nearby

• City of Hitchcock — 0.8 mi
• Hitchcock Depot — 1.5 mi
• Original Site of First Baptist Church of Alta Loma — 2.4 mi
• Greater Bell Zion Missionary Baptist Church — 4.3 mi