The USS Shenandoah, America's first lighter-than-air rigid airship, made its maiden flight on September 4, 1923, after costing the government $2.9 million to construct. Designated ZR-1, it was christened Shenandoah by Mrs. Edwin Denby on October 10, 1923, a name meaning "Daughter of the Stars" in the Algonquian Indian language. Built for the U.S. Navy as a scouting vessel and flying laboratory, it was also the first rigid airship constructed in the United States, the first inflated with non-inflammable helium, and the first moored to a mast mounted on the surface ship USS Patoka. Components were built in Philadelphia and Akron, Ohio, and assembled at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, N.J. The airship was 680 feet long, 78 feet in maximum diameter, and 93 feet 2 inches high, with a framework of 41 longitudinal girders and 19 circular frames made of lightweight duralumin alloy, a cotton outer cover coated with aluminum paint, 20 gas cells attached by 20 miles of cordage, five Packard engines rated at 325 horsepower each, 40 fuel tanks with a total capacity of 4,424 gallons, a hull volume of 2,300,000 cubic feet, an empty weight of 80,400 pounds, and a useful load of 44,100 pounds. Often used as a Navy showpiece as well as in maneuvers, it flew to places including Virginia, Buffalo, N.Y., New York City, and St. Louis, and its most spectacular voyage was a 1924 transcontinental flight from Lakehurst to San Diego, up the west coast to Seattle, and back home. Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowne of Greenville in Darke County, Ohio, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1909, received aviation and airship training in Pensacola, Akron, and England, and became the Shenandoah's commander on February 16, 1924. On the evening of September 2, 1925, the airship began what would be its final flight, a six-day trip arranged to visit 40 cities and five state fairs. Early on September 3, over the hills of southeastern Ohio, a violent thunderstorm tore the ship in two and sent the control car crashing to earth on a farm east of present-day Interstate 77. The stern section landed in a valley less than one mile west, while the bow floated about 13 miles to a farm east of Sharon, where Ernest Nichols tied it down. Fourteen crew members, including Lt. Cmdr. Zachary Lansdowne, died in the crash, while 29 survived, demonstrating the value of helium. In the wake of the disaster, the Navy's lighter-than-air program was largely lost as military emphasis shifted to airplanes.