Editing Richmond Heights, Florida (section)

==History==
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2023}}
At the beginning of World War II, the United States Navy purchased {{convert|2500|acre|ha}} of land in southwestern Dade (now called Miami-Dade) County for the purpose of constructing an airship base. The land was owned by the Richmond Timber Company, a major supplier of Dade County Pine (a denser, harder, sub-species of ''Pinus palustris'', or [[longleaf pine]]). The base was named [[Naval Air Station Richmond]], after the lumber company, and was home to the 25 ships of ZP-21 (Patrol, Airship Squadron 21 and Airship Wing 2). NAS Richmond was the second largest airship base in the United States, [[NAS Lakehurst]] in New Jersey being the largest. NAS Richmond was destroyed by a hurricane and fire in September 1945.

After the end of World War II, Captain Frank C. Martin, a [[Pan Am]]erican pilot, purchased farmland adjacent to the base in rural southwest Dade County. With this purchase he created Richmond Heights, as a new community for returning [[African American]] veterans.

Of the original {{convert|2500|acre|ha}} he purchased in 1949, the federal government had used {{convert|800|acre}} to build the headquarters of Naval Air Station Richmond, a [[blimp]] base constructed in the early months of World War II Richmond, and was eventually home to 25 K-series blimps, three hangars, and 3,000 men. The hangars were 16 stories tall, built of [[Douglas fir]] brought in by train. The blimps protected ship convoys in the [[Florida Straits]], and Richmond was the headquarters for the fight against [[U-boat]]s operating in the Caribbean.