The Shipyard That Never Stops

There is a crane on the Bremerton waterfront that has been lifting things since nineteen thirty-three. It is painted green. It stands two hundred fifty feet tall and eighty feet wide and can hoist two hundred fifty tons at a time. Shipyard workers call it the Hammerhead. You can see it from the ferry.

The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which the crane serves, has been in continuous operation for more than a century. It is the largest public shipyard in the United States by workforce, employing roughly fifteen thousand people. It spans one hundred seventy-nine acres on the shore of Sinclair Inlet, and it has touched nearly every major chapter of American naval history.

During the First World War, the yard built twenty-five sub-chasers and seven submarines. During the Second World War, its primary mission shifted to repair: damaged ships from across the Pacific steamed into Bremerton to be made whole again, then returned to the fight. The pace was relentless. The shipyard ran around the clock, seven days a week, for four years.

After the Cold War, the yard took on a different kind of work. It became the only facility in the United States certified to recycle nuclear-powered ships. More than one hundred twenty-five submarines have been scrapped here, their reactor compartments removed, sealed, and entombed on federal land in eastern Washington. It is meticulous, expensive, and necessary work, and Bremerton does it quietly.

The National Historic Landmark designation came in nineteen ninety-two. The yard got it for twenty-two historic buildings and forty-two historic structures, accumulated across a century of continuous service. The green Hammerhead Crane was among the contributing structures. It is still working.