Grant will restore Enola Gay hangar - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Grant will restore Enola Gay hangar

WENDOVER, Utah — A $450,000 grant from the Save America’s Treasure’s program will restore Utah hangar that housed the Enola Gay, the airplane that delivered an atomic bomb to Hiroshima, Japan.

The grant was among some $10.2 million in grants announced last week from The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the National Park Service. Shops and offices in the air base complex also will be refurbished.

The U.S. military used the Wendover airfield because of its remote location and wide-open terrain. The Enola Gay hangar was used for the development of a the “Silverplate” project for the deployment of atomic weapons. The B-29 hangar was the only one that housed modified B-29 aircraft used for training and for dropping atomic bombs in 1945.

The facility was abandoned after World War II and it buildings fell into disrepair. More than 550 of about 668 original buildings no longer stand.

The nonprofit Historic Wendover Airfield Foundation was founded in 2001 to preserve the air base’s heritage.

The Enola Gay is now housed at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport in Virginia.