THE WRECK OF THE AIRSHIP USS SHENANDOAH
A Tragic Collapse
In September 1925, the USS Shenandoah—the first lighter-than-air rigid airship engineered and constructed in the United States and the pride of the U.S. Navy air program—fell from the sky into the hills of Noble County. The crash of the massive airship was the Roaring Twenties’ equivalent of the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters.