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.