With the christening of the ZR-1 with the name Shenandoah at Lakehurst in the fall of 1923, the nation’s love affair with the American-made dirigible began. As the airship made its early flights, huge crowds turned out to watch the 682-foot-long behemoth fly overhead, and every flight made newspaper headlines from coast to coast.

Other nations had entered the airship race as a point of national pride, with France having one of the largest, the Dixmude, at 750 feet in length.