ANCHORED IN HISTORY: The Legacy of Bremerton Navy Yards
The City of Bremerton is within the historical territory of the Suquamish Tribe. The land was made available for non-Native settlement by the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855.
Bremerton was planned by German immigrant and Seattle entrepreneur William Bremer in 1891. Mr. Bremer saw in the strategic location of the bay region the possibility of a naval station and helped to make his vision a reality. The same year, Congress appropriated $10,000 to acquire 200 acres of land for the site of a dry-dock. Navy Lieutenant Ambrose Barkley Wyckoff was sent to Bremerton for the purpose of purchasing the land on Sinclair Inlet owned by the Bremer family and Bremer-town (Bremerton) was born.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) was established in 1891 as a Naval Station and was later designated Navy Yard Puget Sound in 1901. It was the first dry-dock and repair facility in the Northwest capable of handling the largest ships. During World War I, the Navy Yard expanded to include shipbuilding, constructing 25 subchasers, seven submarines, two minesweepers, seven seagoing tugs, two ammunition ships and 1,700 small boats. During the Great Depression, the shipyard expanded as the nation built up its fleet. The shipyard’s primary effort during World War II was the repair of battle damage to Pacific Fleet warships of the U.S. fleet and those of its allies.
Navy Yard Puget Sound was renamed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard After World War II. It engaged in an extensive program of modernizing carriers and converted conventional flight decks to the angle decks used by new jet aircraft. During the Korean Conflict, the shipyard activated many of the ships in the reserve “mothball” fleet, deactivating them again in 1954. ships. In the late 1950s, it entered an era of new construction with the building of a new class of guided missile frigates. In 1961, the shipyard was designated as a submarine repair facility and four years later, it was established as a nuclear-capable repair facility as the USS Sculpin (SSN 590) became the first nuclear-powered submarine to be maintained at PSNS. The shipyard was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992. The historic district includes 22 buildings and 42 structures, as well as 49 non-contributing buildings, structures, and objects. The shipyard is home to a famous 250-foot-tall, 80-foot-wide green hammerhead crane built in 1933 that was used to move heavy guns on battleships and cruisers. The crane was retired in 1996, but visitors can still see it above the shipyard’s buildings. In 1991 and 1995, PSNS was awarded the Commander-in Chief’s Installation Excellence Award as the Navy’s best shipyard. The Navy also designated PSNS as an “environmentally conscious” shipyard. It is one of the largest naval shipyards on earth and is now 650 acres.
