✈︎✈︎✈︎ McDonnell Douglas Mystery Buildings ✈︎✈︎✈︎ Mystery Cache
✈︎✈︎✈︎ McDonnell Douglas Mystery Buildings ✈︎✈︎✈︎
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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The cache is not at the posted coordinates.
For most this will be a FIELD PUZZLE, however for former Douglas workers the answer is simple. Maybe this puzzle is a good reason to call one of your old Douglas friends and ask them for a nudge! If you search the congressional libraries you may find the answer as well.
At the posted coordinates is the center of what used to be the Final Aircraft Assembly lines for the legacy McDonnell Douglas airplanes. The pictures below show the Douglas factory site in its heyday, and at one point in time consisted of 18 buildings. Activities associated with the factory significantly contributed to the history of the aviation industry in southern California, the war (World War II) effort and the movement to utilize women workers on the Home Front, and to the development and growth of Long Beach and Lakewood.
On the right of Lakewood Blvd there were the final assembly buildings and lots of parking, on the left of Lakewood Blvd the human resources, engineering, parts receiving and factory buildings where airplane parts, wings and fuselages were fabricated and assembled into larger assemblies. All these parts and assemblies were transported across Lakewood Blvd to the final assembly line where they were assembled into complete airplanes.
The following picture pre-dates the one above and shows the factory from a different angle.
During peak war (WW II) production, the Long Beach plant produced an airplane every two hours. Among them: the C-47 Skytrain transport and B-17 bomber, built under a license from Boeing. The factory once employed more than 50,000 workers -- many of them women who typified the "Rosie the Riveter" symbol of the era.
Many buildings shown on the picture have been demolished in recent years, and the area has been re-developed into a modern industrial area with offices, warehouses, hotels, restaurants and shops. Some of the buildings in the picture however are still there and will remain.
Of course, the large factory buildings on the right of Lakewood Blvd are still there. Airplanes are no longer seen but instead hundreds of new Mercedes Benz automobiles pass through here to receive their finishing touches before they are shipped to dealers. Also still there is the legacy McDonnell Douglas Headquarters on the corner of Lakewood and Carson. This building, which today this is a Boeing engineering center which develops modifications for all Boeing Commercial Airplanes, dominates the skyline and flies a large American flag on top. But not so obvious is the smaller insignificant building on the corner of the Lakewood and Douglas Center Drive. This concrete building which was constructed in 1941 can be seen on older maps, although pictures that show better details of what its function was are very rare. You can see the building on Google maps as well, and also using the street view, but you may still not be able to figure out what it is. This building which provided an important function was used on a most daily basis by thousands and thousands of Douglas workers. I've added WP1 to show where it is, but you cannot visit WP1, you can get to ~50' from it, which is all you need. There is also WP2 which is another building that was built for the same purpose.
PUZZLE:
What are these buildings?
_ _ _ _ E_
_ _ _ _ _ N _ _
Put the two words in the geochecker to get the final coordinates.
WHATEVER YOU DO TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE OR OTHERWISE:
1. DO NOT ENTER the Boeing private lot or the Mercedes private lot and do not use it for parking. Security Personnel is active 24/7 and will tell you that it is VERBOTEN to use their lots. Of course, if you work at one of these companies this warning may not apply so much.
2. You can get to about 50' from WP1 or WP2, but not much closer!
3. You look with your eyes, and you can peek from public property and sidewalks through fences onto private property.
4. Cache IS on public property and available 24/7.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[PUZZLE:] ernq qrfpevcgvba, ivfvg ybpngvba, naq hfr lbhe rlrf/vzntvangvba. BE: pbagnpg n sbezre Qbhtynf jbexre. BE: cynl gur Nqiragher Yno! [HIDE]gnxrngbggjvgunubhxnybat.
Treasures
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