Carson’s Spirit of America

The Blimp of Carson has been a marvel for multiple generations in the South Bay.

The Goodyear Blimp will often carry riders from their Carson location along the 405 and up and over Torrance along the beach to Palos Verdes and then almost backtracking to their dock.

Called the Spirit of America the Blimp can be seen almost daily over the South Bay since 1920!.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which was founded in Akron, Ohio, in 1898, opened its Los Angeles tire factory on June 14, 1920. Blimps were part of the corporate culture even then; an April 25, 1920 Los Angeles Times article refers to an upcoming test flight of a small, two-man craft called a “pony blimp” at the company’s soon-to-be-opened West Coast plant.

It has been docked at various local airports though including Torrance. Today the Blimps most recent location is Goodyear Airship Operations base, at 19200 S. Main Street.