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Pan Am Hangar 5

Pan Am Hangar 5 – a national aviation landmark at MIA

Pan Am Hangar 5, built in 1929, is a unique aviation landmark, the sole survivor of an era that introduced international passenger aviation to Miami and the world.

Hangar 5 at MIA 2024. Image courtesy H5F.
An industrial area featuring a large warehouse with a gray metal roof, surrounded by parking for vehicles, trailers, and a fenced compound. In the background, a multi-story building and power lines are visible, under a partly cloudy sky.
Hangar 5 (2023). Image courtesy H5F.
Hangar 5, view from parking lot (2024). Photo courtesy H5F.
Newspaper article headline announcing the addition of a third and largest hangar for the Pan-American airport at Miami Port, with details about construction bids and plans.
Miami Herald, December 15, 1928
A newspaper article detailing the contract for a new hangar at the Pan-American Airport, including dimensions and construction details.
Miami Herald, December 30, 1928

If you’d been leafing through the Miami Herald on 16 May 1928, you might have been forgiven for not noticing the following small item reported on page 14:

AIRWAYS OFFICIAL MAKES SURVEY OF MIAMI
Conferences with city officials were held yesterday by J. A. Whitbeck, Operations Manager of the Pan American Airways, which operates the air mail line from Key West to Havana, who was here to make a survey of airport facilities.  The city aviation department is trying to induce the airways to operate from Key West to Miami.

After all, Pan American Airways was hardly a household name.  It had been only eight months since Juan Trippe’s fledgling airline had launched its first airmail flight between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba.  Besides, Miamians were still preoccupied with overcoming the devastating effects that the hurricane of 1926 had inflicted on the young city’s real estate market and economy.

But only a month later, on June 21, these front-page Miami Herald headlines would have been hard to miss:

PAN AMERICAN TAKES AIRPORT LEASE IN MIAMI
Plans Make City Center of Aviation Development with South America
130 ACRES ACQUIRED FOR LANDING FIELD
$50,000 Facilities to Include Hangar; Downtown Office Opened

The importance of the events which followed the publication of those two articles, and the speed at which they unfolded, would be transformative for Miami and for aviation history. 

The Birth of Pan Am’s Miami Base (1928–1929)

By the end of June, under the direction of Capt. J.E. Whitbeck, engineer in charge of airport construction for Pan Am, draglines had started to clear an airfield along the south side of NW 36th Street. The first hangar—completed in September—could house four tri-motor aircraft and featured a pioneering, one-man-operated door designed by Whitbeck himself. On September 15, 1928 Pan Am inaugurated mail service between Miami, Key West, and Havana, with passenger fares set at $75. Miami firm Sandquist & Snow won the $50,000 contract to build the nation’s first terminal designed specifically for commercial passenger aviation, with plans by New York architects Delano & Aldrich.

On November 1, 1928, Pan Am officially moved operations from Key West to Miami following the completion of the main rolled-rock runway. The shift marked Miami’s emergence as the airline’s new hub.

In December, bids were solicited for construction of the third, and largest, hangar, Pan Am Hangar 5, to be built west of the terminal. By the end of the month, it was announced that the winning bidder was the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company.

On January 9, 1929, six and a half months after announcing that it would establish a base in Miami, Pan American officially inaugurated its new airport along with regularly scheduled passenger and mail service from Miami to Havana, Santiago (Cuba), Nassau, Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo and San Juan.

Hangar 5, the fourth and final building built at the airport, was completed in April 1929. It spanned 100 by 120 feet, then the largest clear-span hangar in the country. Featuring shop facilities, a control tower, and radio aerials, Hangar 5 was a symbol of Miami’s new identity as “the Crossroads of the Western Hemisphere” and “the City of Aviation.”

Exterior view of a large airport hangar at the Pan-American airport, showcasing its spacious design and adjoining tower.
Miami Herald, May 12, 1929.

Hangar 5 across the decades

The following series of photos illustrate the several uses to which Pan Am Hangar 5 has been put across the decades. Beginning life as a maintenance and overhaul hangar for Pan Am’s passenger fleet it also subsequently served as the airline’s principal cargo hangar, a fuel testing lab, supply, shipping and receiving depot, the company mail room, carpentry and paint shops, port steward’s equipment and passenger service stockroom. An automotive repair shop was also located in an adjacent lean-to built in the 1940s. It is currently leased to a charter airline. There is broad community support for a project that would see the historic hangar repurposed as a proud exhibition space and showcase for Miami aviation history. Hangar 5 Foundation, Inc. is an active champion of, and participant in, these efforts.

Aerial view of an airport layout resembling a butterfly shape, surrounded by residential neighborhoods and open land.
Aerial view of Pan American Airport at NW 36th Street. Hangar 5 is seen on the right. Image courtesy UM Richter Library Pan American Airways Collection.
Workers performing maintenance on a vintage aircraft named 'Clipper Comet' inside a hangar.
Pan Am Boeing 307 stratoclipper, Clipper Comet, being serviced in Pan Am Hangar 5, circa 1942. Image courtesy private collection.
Vintage sign for Miami International Airport, displaying arrivals and departures information with palm trees and classic cars in the foreground.
Entrance to Miami International Airport from NW 36th Street, circa 1952, with Pan Am Hangar 5 in the background. For decades, Hangar 5 was a familiar landmark that could be clearly seen from NW 36th Street. Photo courtesy Florida Memory State Archives.
Black and white image of a large building and hangar set in a rural landscape, featuring a grassy foreground.
Pan Am Hangar 5 and terminal are shown in this photo which accompanied a Miami Herald article from May 19, 1929 describing the aviation facilities which were allowing Miami to grow into a leading hub of aviation. Pan Am Hangar 5 is the only remaining aviation landmark featured in the article that still stands.
Black and white photograph of a large industrial building with two distinct structures, one resembling a hangar and the other a smaller, curved roof building, set in an open landscape with sparse vegetation.
Pan Am Hangar 5 as viewed from NW 36th Street circa 1942. Photo courtesy Florida Memory State Archives.
Three Curtiss Wright C-46F Commandos parked on a tarmac under a cloudy sky, featuring the Pan American World Airways branding on the aircraft.
Pan Am cargo clippers parked outside Pan Am Hangar 5, circa 1949. Photo courtesy Pan Am Historical Foundation.
A Miami Air Boeing 737-800 aircraft parked outside of the Miami Air hangar, with vehicles in the foreground and wet pavement indicating recent rain.
Historic Pan Am Hangar 5 as seen circa 2015 when it last served as a hangar, to charter airline Miami Air.
Historic image of an airplane parked at an early aviation hangar, with a grassy area and a distant wooded background.
View of Pan Am Hangar 5 looking northwest, circa 1930. Photo courtesy UM Richter Library Pan Am Digital Collection.
Two vintage airplanes parked in front of a hangar with 'Trans World Airways' signage on it.
Cargo clippers outside Pan Am Hangar 5, circa 1949. Photo courtesy Florida Memory State Archives
Historic image of workers unloading cargo at an airport with a Pan American airplane in the background.
Cargo being loaded onto Pan Am cargo fleet outside Pan Am Hangar 5, circa 1950. Photo courtesy Florida Memory State Archives.

Of the original four-building complex comprising Pan American Airport, the terminal and its two eastern hangars have been torn down (the terminal was demolished in November 1962).  Hangar 5 is the only building that still remains. Still beautiful.  Still functioning.  Humbly and without fanfare it continues to bear witness to the earliest days of Miami’s emergence as a hub for international commercial passenger aviation.  To bear witness to successive decades of Pan Am’s presence and influence in Miami.  To bear witness to the birthplace of international aviation, as pioneered by Pan Am, and of today’s MIA, one of the world’s most important international airports.