Drive past Mountain View on Highway 101 and you can't miss it: a silver, round-shouldered shed big enough to hold a small neighborhood. Hangar One is one of the largest freestanding structures in the world, and its story runs from Navy airships to Google.
Built for the Macon
The hangar was built in 1933 to house the Navy's rigid airship USS Macon, with a design attributed to engineer Karl Arnstein. It covers 8 acres. It is about 1,133 feet long, 308 feet wide and 198 feet tall, and the curved 'orange peel' doors at each end weigh about 200 tons apiece. The space is so large that fog sometimes forms inside, according to Wikipedia's history of the building.
The Moffett Field Museum splits the base's history into eras: the Macon era (1933-1935), the Army era (1935-1942), World War II, the Cold War and the modern era from 1989.
Toxic and endangered
The hangar was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Feb. 24, 1994. In 2003 it was found to be leaking PCBs, and in 2008 it was named one of America's 11 most endangered historic places. The Navy began remediation in 2010 and stripped the exterior panels in 2011 and 2012, leaving only the steel skeleton.
The museum itself was a casualty. The Moffett Field Historical Society formed in May 1993, and its museum opened a year later on the west side of Hangar One. It stayed there until January 2002, when it closed because hazardous materials were found throughout the structure, and it reopened in Building 126 in April 2005, according to the museum.
Google steps in
Google offered in 2011 to pay $33 million toward reskinning the hangar. In 2014, Planetary Ventures, a Google affiliate, was chosen to manage the site under a 60-year lease valued at $1.16 billion. Restoration was reported complete in December 2025 and celebrated in March 2026.
Moffett is an active federal airfield, so the hangar isn't open for casual visits. The Moffett Field Museum is the best place to see the airship-era story up close.