Air Show

Next time you depart from one of LAX’s south runways, glance to your left. About three seconds after liftoff, you’ll notice a small Spanish-style building sandwiched between the FedEx and Delta Airlines cargo facilities. It’s Hangar No. 1, the last remaining building from Mines Field, forerunner of Los Angeles International Airport. Hangar No. 1 was part of a six-building complex completed in the barley fields off the Imperial Highway in 1930. Designed as an aviation school, Mines instead became an aerodrome invested with the romance of Hollywood. Mary Pickford dedicated the buildings, Jimmy Stewart landed his biplane there, and Robert Taylor, Wallace Beery and Jean Harlow used the location as a photo backdrop. Never intended as a passenger facility--Burbank handled most of L.A.’s commercial traffic in those days--the buildings were mainly used as maintenance facilities. When passenger terminals finally opened across the runway in 1946, space demands by the growing airport eventually eliminated hangars 2 through 5, leaving No. 1. Thanks to vigorous lobbying by preservationists, Hangar No. 1 was named a National Historic Landmark and City Cultural Monument. Still functioning as a cargo warehouse and extensively rehabbed, it remains one of Southern California’s hidden gems.