Former Site of Boston Naval Shipyard (Boston, Massachusetts)

 military, shipyard, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, historical layer / disappeared object, United States Navy

Formally established in 1801 the Boston (or Charleston) Navy Yard was an active site for shipbuilding in the years leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War. Following the Government purchase of the land on the South side of Charlestown in 1801, the yard built the first US ship of the line, USS Independence in 1814. The yard and facilities grew through the 1800s serving mostly as a repair and maintenence facility for the sail-powered US Navy, with the most significant addition to the yard being completed in 1833: The first Naval Drydock in the United States.

Throughout the later half of the 19th and early 20th Century including WWI, the yard began a transformation of facilities to handle and repair the more modern steel ships being used in the Navy, which included the addition of a second, larger drydock to the yards facilities. With the country fighting to get out of the Great Depression and ominious clouds building on the far side of the Atlantic, the US Govt & Dept of the Navy began to fund the modernization of the yard so it could begin building and repairing Destroyers, starting with several members of the Farragut Class in 1933. The yard, limited by its relatively small dock space, found its niche in Destroyer production and repair and in the years leading up to and during WWII would go on to make 36 Destroyers of 5 different classes before new construction was halted in 1943. The Yard's proximity to the vital North Atlantic Sea Lanes meant it's repair facilities were kept more than busy by the steady stream of US, British and Allied merchant and warships damaged in the Battle of the North Atlantic, raging just offshore. This type of repair and refit work kept the yard active through the end of WWII and the years following, when the yard began to service and deactivate ships being sent into mothballs.

The yard was not heavily active as a repair facility during the Korean or Vietnam Wars, primarily due to its geographical distance from the battle, however the US Navy gave the Yard a large contract to conduct FRAM (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization) overhauls on many of the late WWII-era Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts in active Navy Service in the beginning stages of the Cold War. This work would constitute the majority of the Yards work up to its 1974 closure, whe the US Navy deemed its aging facilities and limited docking space obsolete to the needs of the modern Navy. The Boston Naval Shipyard officially closed its doors on July 1, 1974.

Following the official closure, the US Navy transferred the original 30-acre property to the National Park Service to be part of Boston National Historical Park, which now houses the docking and maintenence facilites for the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy, and the oldest floating commissioned ship in the world, and the USS Cassin Young (DD-793), a Fletcher Class Destroyer and decorated WWII and Korean War Veteran. Today the yard is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open for tours as part of Bostons Freedom Trail.

www.nps.gov/bost/historyculture/cny.htm
www.destroyerhistory.org/destroyers/bostonny.html

For a full listing of ships built here, please see:
www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/3public/b...