Time to Return the Naval Museum to Norfolk (VA)
Let’s bring the Navy Museum home to Norfolk
Let’s bring the Navy Museum home to Norfolk
Recently, Navy Secretary John Phelan withdrew the seagoing service from an agreement with the District of Columbia for a land swap that would have established a new and more publicly accessible home for the Navy Museum near its current location, behind the restricted brick walls of the Navy Yard.
Downtown Norfolk should be considered for the future home of the Navy Museum. For more than two centuries, Norfolk has been inextricably linked to the U.S. Navy as the epicenter of major historic naval milestones in southeastern Virginia.
The relationship started back in 1767 with shipbuilding at the Gosport Shipyard, now known as Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. There, the Navy built one of the first six frigates authorized by President George Washington — the USS Chesapeake. During the Civil War, confederate forces rebuilt the former USS Merrimac, creating the ironclad CSS Virginia, which made history fighting the federal ironclad USS Monitor. They fought at the convergence of the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers — the roadstead better known as Hampton Roads. The battle was a tactical stalemate, but marked the sunset of the age of sail and the dawn of steel ships.
In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet of 16 battleships weighed anchor and sailed out of the same waters with a fresh coat of white paint and a mission to project America’s naval power around…