One of the largest wooden structures in the world will not be repaired. The Port of Tillamook Bay Board of Commissioners in Oregon voted 4-1 this week against repairing the storm-damaged roof of Hangar B — a 1943 wartime Navy blimp hangar nearly 330 metres long, 90 metres wide, and 59 metres tall. After 83 years of standing watch over a stretch of Pacific coastline that once hunted Japanese submarines, the hangar will be allowed to decay.

Even with possible FEMA assistance, the Port would owe a local match of roughly $1.3 million for the roof repair alone — and estimates for fully restoring the building start at $20 million and, by some consultant assessments, run far higher. The Port has determined it cannot carry that burden.

A Wartime Engineering Marvel

Hangar B was built in under a year in the depths of World War II. The Navy needed enormous shelters for K-class blimps assigned to anti-submarine patrols off the West Coast — airships that prowled the Pacific looking for Japanese submarines targeting shipping between San Francisco and Seattle.

Steel was rationed. Concrete was tight. So Navy engineers turned to wood — specifically to Douglas fir, which grows abundantly in Oregon’s coastal forests. The resulting building used 3.2 million board feet of lumber, with massive arched trusses that span 92 metres without a single supporting column.

When the war ended, Hangar A and Hangar B were among 17 nearly identical structures built across the United States to house the Navy’s blimp fleet. Most have since been demolished. Hangar A burned to the ground in a spectacular fire in 1992. Hangar B remained.

Hangar B is one of the largest clear-span wooden structures ever built. At 1,072 feet long and 296 feet wide, it covers more than seven acres. The US Navy built it to house the K-class blimps that patrolled the Pacific coast for Japanese submarines.

Decades as a Museum and Aviation Hub

For more than 30 years Hangar B has housed the Tillamook Air Museum, a collection of WWII and Cold War aircraft including a Douglas A-26 Invader, an F-14 Tomcat, and a Polish-built Lim-6 — a licence-made MiG-17 variant. The museum has been one of the largest tourist draws on the Oregon coast.

But the maintenance burden has grown. Aging wood in a coastal climate requires constant work. A December 2025 windstorm tore open a roughly 170-by-30-foot section of the roof, and subsequent assessments put full restoration at $20 million at minimum — and by some consultant estimates far more — beyond what either the Port, the museum or any single Oregon agency can fund alone. Federal historic-preservation grants have shrunk to the point where they cannot close that kind of gap.

Preservation advocates point out that the hangar survived more than 80 years of Oregon weather and the fire that destroyed its twin in 1992. What it may not survive, they argue, is the simple arithmetic of what maintaining it costs.

A Slow End

The Port board’s decision does not condemn the hangar immediately. The structure will continue to stand for years, but the museum has remained closed since the December 2025 storm, with no reopening date announced. Without tens of millions in restoration funding, the long-term outcome is no longer in doubt. Without intervention, the largest surviving wooden hangar of WWII will eventually go the way of its sister — quickly, in a single dramatic moment, or slowly, beam by beam.

For now, it still stands. If you have ever wanted to see it, the next few years may be the time.

Sources: FLYING Magazine, Tillamook County news, Port of Tillamook Bay public statements.