National Historic Landmark · battleship · Fall River, Massachusetts

Uss Massachusetts (bb-59) National Historic Landmark

Fast battleship of the United States Navy in Fall River, Massachusetts. Added to the National Register in 1976, and a National Historic Landmark.

5 inch turrets aboard USS Massachusetts (BB-59)Battleships and heavy cruisers steam in column off Kamaishi. (50971906608)Bombardment of Kamaishi, Japan, 14 July 1945 - 80-G-490143Bombardment of Kamaishi, Japan, 14 July 1945 - 80-G-K-6035
Photos via Wikimedia Commons · 6 in the Commons category

What it is

Wikipedia · USS Massachusetts (BB-59)

USS Massachusetts, hull number BB-59, is the third of four South Dakota-class fast battleships built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s. The first American battleships designed after the Washington treaty system began to break down in the mid-1930s, they took advantage of an escalator clause that allowed increasing the main battery to 16-inch (406 mm) guns, but refusal to authorize larger battleships kept their displacement close to the Washington limit of 35,000 long tons (36,000 t). A requirement to be armored against the same caliber of guns as they carried, combined with the displacement restriction, resulted in cramped ships, a problem that was exacerbated by wartime modifications that considerably strengthened their anti-aircraft batteries and significantly increased their crews.

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The record

National Register of Historic Places
Property typeStructure
AddressBattleship Cove, Fall River, MA
CountyBristol County
ListedSep 30, 1976
Reference number76002269
Type of placebattleship, museum ship, preserved watercraft
DesignationsNational Historic Landmark
Contributing resources1 structures
StandingYes

The nomination form, the document that argues why this place matters, is in the National Archives: Read the nomination ↗

Visiting

Open to the public
AddressBattleship Cove, Fall River, MA
Coordinates41.70683, -71.16295 · Directions ↗
Nearest national park unitNew Bedford Whaling National Historical Park · 13 mi · on Park Atlas
Federal campgrounds nearbyWest Hill Park 36 mi
This one you can go inside. Hours and admission change with the season; the website above has the current schedule.

Explore

Why you would stay

Reference

Exists because it is true

Sources

Location, dates, type and contributing counts come from the National Park Service's National Register spatial data. Construction date, architect, style, photograph and encyclopedia link come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, matched on reference number 76002269. Nothing here is transcribed by hand. The description under "What it is" is the opening of the Wikipedia article, CC BY-SA.