Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Convinced of the need to repair the nation’s Navy ships more quickly and efficiently, President John Quincy Adams and Congress agreed in 1827 to follow engineers’ recommendations to build two dry docks, one at Gosport and one in Boston. Construction of the Boston dry dock began first, but Gosport opened its $974,365 granite dry dock first when the line-of-battle ship Delaware was docked there on June 17, 1833, the first dry docking in the Western Hemisphere. Construction of the dry dock was completed in March 1834. At Gosport, the day of careening vessels for repair ended on June 17, 1833, when sailors using a capstan slowly drew the 74-gun USS Delaware into Dry Dock 1. Designed by famed civil engineer Colonel Loammi Baldwin, the dry dock could host the nation’s largest ships.

Portsmouth, Virginia · United States