Where does helium come from?

I was driving up Interstate 205 towards Portland (Oregon) today. I took notice of a floating promotional blimp, tethered to a building. The blimp, a small scale replica of say a Goodyear or Sanyo airship has flown over that location promoting a spa/pool shop for years.

But today I took notice and wondered: Where does helium come from? Are there helium mines somewhere that I don't know about? Can you manufacture gas (aside from Gregster's ability to do so after any given meal) in a factory?

My eyes glanced back and forth from the road and this rather stationery-suddenly-mesmerising roadside promotional piece. I wondered for a while about it. Or, more precisely, the gas that keeps it afloat.

Sure, I could Google it, Wikipedia it, take-some-other-internet-information-entity-and-use-its-name-as-a-verb it. I could ask someone. If I was in North Portland, I could aks someone. But I spent the remainder of my drive basking in my child like wonderment.

I wonder if the radio guy that announced the Hindenburg crash was thinking the same thing about Hydrogen. I mean, his broadcast started off routine enough. He was probably bored, wondering "where does Hydrogen come from? Can you mine it? Manufacture it? OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY!"

gooch:out.