Cruiser Olympia
N 39° 56.620 W 075° 08.480
18S E 487925 N 4421514
Cruiser Olympia was the first of its kind and launched the U.S. modern steel navy and is the last of its kind -- the only vessel from the Spanish-American war still afloat.
Waymark Code: WMAZCK
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 03/15/2011
Views: 18
Olympia, the elegant late-Victorian Navy ship equipped with both sailing masts and a steam engine, is an endangered National Historic Landmark and National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.
From the moment of her launching in 1892, Olympia was a rare treasure in the U.S. naval fleet, as no sister ships were ever built. She is the world's oldest floating steel warship and the sole-surviving naval ship of the Spanish-American War. Olympia served as Admiral Dewey's flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay, which marked the U.S.'s emergence as a world naval power.
Olympia's last official naval mission was to carry the body of WWI's Unknown Soldier from France to the United States in 1921.
Olympia has been compared to the USS Constitution and the Constellation as one of the most important vessels in U.S. Naval history. The late Victorian-era ship straddles the shift between the age of sail and the age of steel, and marks the launch of the modern steel Navy.
In addition to being a National Historic Landmark (recognized by the federal government for "exceptional value or quality in illustrating and interpreting the heritage of the United States"), Olympia is also a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, and part of the Save America's Treasures program.
To learn about Olympia's remarkable history, read the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation, available here:
memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/pa/pa3500/p a 3529/data/pa3529.pdf
For more information about Olympia's status from the Independence Seaport Museum, visit www.phillyseaport.org/olympia_transfer/
The museum intends to scuttle, scrap or reef the ship if a new owner can't be found.
Olympia was built at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California and launched in 1893. All the materials of construction were made in the United States. The Carbon Iron Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania furnished the hull plating. Steel shapes came from the Midvale Steel Company, a division of the Pacific Rolling Mills of San Francisco. Boiler plate from Carnegie, Phipps & Company of Pittsburgh, and the shafting came from the Bethlehem Iron Company, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (HAER)