ResearchFiles KenLomax A Chronicle of the Battleship Oregon here was a time when thebattleship Oregon ranked among themost famous ships of theU.S. Navy. The Oregon's nearly sixty-five-year career encompassed an epic sea voyage, action in a pivotal battle of the Spanish American War, and service as awar memorial and museum on the Portland, Oregon, waterfront. From the ship's launching to itsun fortunate demise, generations of Oregonians took the Oregon into their hearts as a point of pride. After the Civil War, theUnited States looked to its internal growth, and by the 1880s the once mighty U.S. fleet had declined to the point where it was eclipsed by themajor navies of theworld. England, Germany, Russia, and Japan were building steam-powered, steel-hulled navies of increasing size and power, while new advances in armor plate and naval armament rendered theUnited State's Civil War-era fleet obsolete. These new forces were used both to project national power and to protect countries' colonial interests. Under the influence of strategists such as Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan of theU.S. Navy and Benjamin Franklin Tracy, secretary of the navy inPresident Benjamin Harrison's cabinet, theUnited States recognized the need tomodernize its sea forces and began to rebuild its fleet, firstwith cruisers and lightly armored second-class battleships such as theUSS Maine and thenwith itsfirst true battleships ? theUSS Indiana, the USS Massa chusetts, and theUSS Oregon. Two U.S. Navy ships with the name Oregon preceded the battleship. In 1841, Lt. Charles Wilkes surveyed the Columbia River in a brig he had j_p 132 OHQ vol. 106, no. 1 ? 2005 Oregon Historical Society OHS neg.,OrHi 11912 The USS Oregon (BB3), with gun turrets yet to be installed, throws a huge bow wave during speed trials in the Santa Barbara Channel offCalifornia in 1893.When making a foaming, white wave such as this, a ship was said to have "a bone in her teeth." renamed Oregon (formerly the Thomas H. Perkins), a replacement for the Peacock, which had wrecked on the Columbia River bar. The second ship was an iron-clad monitor of theUnion Navy on which construction was begun during theCivil War but never finished. The keel of the thirdOregon was laid down on November 19,1891, atUnion Iron Works in San Francisco. Although Union had been inbusiness since the gold-rush days of the 1850s it had been building ships only since 1885 and the contract forover $4million for theOregon was its largest yet. The launching of the hull took place on October 26,1893, as Eugenia Shelby and Daisy Ainsworth, representatives from Oregon, christened the ship by pressing electric switches to send it down theways. A large, enthusiastic crowd ? onshore and afloat ? viewed the launching ceremony in San Francisco Bay. After two and a half years of outfitting and sea trials, the Oregon was commissioned on July 15,1896, and theU.S. Navy had itsfirst full-fledged modern battleship in Pacific waters. Following commissioning, the ship served on theWest Coast and then in 1897-1898 was put into dry dock at Bremerton, Washington, for refitting and the installation of keelsons (keel-like structures on each side of the hull that improved stability). Itwas fortunate that the Oregon had just come out of a refit and was in superb Lomax, A Chronicle of the Battleship Oregon 133 condition, for it was to prove the right ship at the right time for theUnited States in the looming Spanish American War. By 1898, tensions between Spain and theUnited States had been rising for some time, and Spain's harsh treatment of itsCuban colony's subjects during rebel insurrections had been widely and luridly reported inU.S. newspapers. The USS Maine had been sent to Havana to show the U.S. flag and bolster the nerves ofAmerican interests on the island, which had prompted Spain to send its cruiser Vizcaya toNew York harbor on a "cour tesyvisit." On February 15,1898, the Maine exploded inHavana harbor and 266 liveswere lost.A board of inquiry at the time favored an enemy mine as the cause of the blast, but most modern assessments blame cooking off of the powder magazines by the...