2025 marks the 250th birthday of the United States Navy. In celebration and reflection of this most momentous milestone, we will be looking at how Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) has directly supported the U.S. Navy throughout the centuries. This time on Heritage Hour, we look back at the iconic Dry Dock 1 and its impact on the U.S. Navy and here at home.
It is well known that NNSY is home to the oldest dry dock in the country and how it held USS Delaware and was the cradle of the ironclads, but why was it so important to the U.S. Navy? A navy’s power is often calculated by the number of boats afloat, and every boat out of commission for repair is a point of weakness. The primary benefit of a drydock in ship repair is the speed which repairs can be completed without being reliant on the tides to finish the work. The reason the U.S. Navy needed to build and to support a strong navy came with the costly lessons learned during the War of 1812 with the British blockade and the burning of Washington D.C.
The pride Portsmouth, Virginia takes in Dry Dock 1 is almost as old as the structure itself. An article in an 1864 local newspaper, Old Dominion, boasted how the drydock’s capabilities bypassed those of the drydocks in Boston and Brooklyn. It was also noted that the local drydock was the largest on the continent, a bit of artist license as the Boston dock was built from the same plans. The granite for both even came from the same quarry in Massachusetts. A small exaggeration that no doubt bolstered pride and reassurance to the local population only two years after the second burning of the shipyard during the American Civil War.
Dry Dock 1 has served the U.S. Navy well as naval technology has advanced. To see pictures of post-World War I submarines within the same granite blocks that once supported wooden ships is a reflection not only of the advancement of time, but also a tribute to the timeless work that was put into the drydock’s original construction by its craftsmen. To know that the work done almost two centuries ago still stands for us to not only see in photographs, but in person, still here supporting the U.S. Navy.