USS Shenandoah (ZR-1)

The USS Shenandoah, the first in a line of four United States Navy rigid airships, was actually based upon a crashed World War I era zeppelin: the Zeppelin Company's "L-49". When the U.S. Navy thought about building a zeppelin of their own, they had already had blimps for some time. A good portion of these blimps were stationed at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Also, the only room large enough in which to assemble a zeppelin was Hangar Number One, built in 1921, at Lakehurst.

The USS Shenandoah took to the sky for the first time on September 4, 1923.