The world’s single largest building is located in Everett, Wash., a northern suburb of Seattle. And yet, if you didn’t make an effort to visit Paine Field, you might never know it was there.
This structure is no high rise. It is 2.2 miles from one end to the other, sprawling across more than 98 acres. Thirty thousand men and women work here, churning out Boeing 747 jetliners — as well as 767s, 777s and 787s — on a nonstop assembly line.
Although Boeing company headquarters are now in Chicago, greater Seattle is still its manufacturing hub, with more than 75,000 employees in the Puget Sound area. And five separate air museums, one of which offers tours of the assembly plant, draw more than 200,000 visitors each year.
William Boeing’s original 1916 manufacturing facility, known as the “Red Barn,” stands beside Boeing Field as the cornerstone of the exquisite Museum of Flight in south Seattle. The museum’s Restoration Center is at Everett’s Paine Field, keeping close company with the Historic Flight Foundation and Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection.
For the complete story by John Gottberg Anderson in The (Eugene, Ore.) Register-Guard, click here.
