Boeing Plant 2
| Built | 1936 |
|---|---|
| Location | King County, Washington, USA |
| Products |
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Boeing 307 Boeing B-29 Superfortress Boeing B-50 Superfortress B-47 Stratojet Boeing 377 B-52 Stratofortress Boeing 737 |
Boeing Plant 2 (also known as Air Force Plant 17) was a factory building which was built in 1936 by the Boeing Corporation in King County, Washington in the United States. By the time production ceased in the building, the plant had built half of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, the Boeing 307s, the Boeing 377s, some of the Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, Boeing B-50 Superfortresses, B-47 Stratojets, B-52 Stratofortresses, and the initial Boeing 737s. It was located between the Duwamish River and Boeing Field.
In the 1930s, it became apparent that Boeing Plant 1, located right down the river, was obsolete for aircraft production as it focused on stitching, gluing, and nailing biplanes together. Plant 2 was built as a modern assembly line where metal would be stamped and placed onto the planes in the same facility. In 1936, the plant was finished with a goal to build early prototypes of the B-17 Flying Fortress and the Boeing 307s. At this time the floor was 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2). 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) was added to the plant in May 1940 to support Boeing production of 380 Douglas DB-7 light bombers. By the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the plant had been expanded to 1,776,000 square feet (165,000 m2). In total, 6,981 B-17s were produced in Plant 2.
To hide the factory from possible aerial attack, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built houses of plywood and fabric and installed fake streets to camouflage the roof. The idea was to blend the facility into the surrounding neighborhood across the river. Later in the war, the first three B-29 Superfortress were built in the facility. While B-29s were built by Boeing in Renton, Washington, and Wichita, Kansas, a Bell plant at Marietta, Georgia, and a Martin plant at Omaha, Nebraska, sub assemblies were produced in Plant 2 and shipped to the Renton plant. All 370 of the follow-on aircraft, the Boeing B-50 Superfortress, were built in Plant 2.
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