The Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility, also known colloquially as "Silver Hill", is a storage and former conservation and restoration facility of the Smithsonian

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the N ...

, located in

Suitland, Maryland Suitland is an unincorporated community and census designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, approximately one mile (1.6 km) southeast of Washington, D.C. As of the 2020 census, its population was 25,839. Pr ...

, United States. Located adjacent to the Museum Support Center – a facility that serves the same purpose for other Smithsonian museums – the Paul E. Garber Facility was once the main artifact restoration facility of the National Air and Space Museum. The museum still stores aircraft and other artifacts at the Paul E. Garber Facility, but most storage and restoration functions have relocated to the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, also called the Udvar-Hazy Center, is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly area of Fairfax County, Virginia. It holds numerous ...

Chantilly, Virginia Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County, Virginia. The population was 24,301 as of the 2020 census. Chantilly is named after an early-19th-century mansion and farm, which in turn took the ...

. The facility is not open to the public. It is named in honor of Paul E. Garber, a Smithsonian curator who devoted most of his career to maintaining a collection of historic aircraft. It was created in the early 1950s by Garber to store, protect the museum's growing collection of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

aircraft and provide space to restore them. The facility consists of 32 unassuming metal buildings. 19 of those buildings are devoted to storage of airplanes, spacecraft, engines, and various parts awaiting restoration. One building formerly housed a large restoration shop, and three buildings are for exhibition creation. To date, the largest restoration project undertaken by the Garber Facility was the

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 ...

, ''

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it ...

''. Work began in 1984. The fuselage alone took 10 years of work. The aircraft was finally delivered to the

in 11 tractor trailer loads over the space of three months in 2003. Approximately 65

space suit A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...

s from the Mercury, Apollo, and other U.S. space programs were formerly stored at the facility in an environmentally-controlled room; these have now been moved to the

. The roof collapsed on the facility's Warehouse #21 just before dawn on February 10, 2010 during a blizzard and the region's second 15 to 30 inch snowstorm during a five-day period. The warehouse, scheduled for eventual demolition after transfer of the artifacts to the

, contained historic aircraft and spacecraft that were exposed to sub-freezing temperatures and blowing snow. They were not thought to be damaged, as all were in protective boxes or crates on shelving units that were still supporting parts of the warehouse.

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Virtual tour
{{Coord, 38, 50, 29.92, N, 76, 56, 35.99, W, display=title Smithsonian Institution Buildings and structures in Prince George's County, Maryland Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

See also

References

External links