Puget Sound Navy Museum has room to grow in new home

BREMERTON – The U.S. Navy’s connection with the Puget Sound region, lasting more than a century, unfolds before visitors as they walk through the Puget Sound Navy Museum. Photos, videos, ship models, personal items and parts from ships trace the Navy’s growth in the region from its beginnings in 1891 to the five major bases along the shores of Puget Sound today.

Visitors learn about life aboard the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis; follow the growth of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton; learn about the USS Parche, the most decorated submarine in Navy history; and find out what goes on in Shop 31, the shipyard’s maintenance shop.

“Our goal is to become a first-class Navy museum that will highlight Navy activities and the history of the Navy in Puget Sound, including Whidbey Island, Keyport, Bangor and Bremerton,” said Lyle Nelson, president of the Puget Sound Navy Museum Foundation.

Telling that story will be easier now that the museum has a new, larger home in the city’s revitalized waterfront and has become part of the Naval Historical Center, which operates 12 official Navy museums nationwide.

The museum opened in 1954 and was, for most of that time, in a storefront in downtown Bremerton. But limited space and a philosophy of displaying everything led to a cramped, overcrowded feel.

“By museum standards, it was overstocked. If we liked something, we showed it,” Nelson said of the old location.

In the new space, one room has seven reproductions of paintings done by Navy artist Vernon Howe Bailey, showing scenes from the shipyard. Another room displays ship models, including two built by apprentices at the shipyard. One is a wooden replica of a 30-foot gaff-rigged sloop that stands more than 8 feet high.

There also are mementos from ships with a Puget Sound connection, such as the ship’s bell from the heavy cruiser USS Bremerton and a piece of the arc welding gear used to signify the completion of the USS Puget Sound, a destroyer tender, in 1968.

Since the 1960s a dedicated cadre of volunteers, including Nelson, operated the museum that was originally named the Shipyard Naval Museum. In 2002, the volunteers learned the city and the Navy were negotiating a deal to allow the museum to use the shipyard’s former administration office, Building 50.

In 2004, the Navy moved the building to its location between the yard’s Bremerton gate and the ferry terminal.

The city gutted the building as part of a $6 million renovation and added a much-needed basement, Nelson said.

Seven months after moving into its new permanent home, the museum earned designation as one of dozen official Navy museums in the country. That change meant an infusion of $1 million federal dollars for operations and the hiring of a professional museum staff.

Another benefit of being a Navy museum is exhibits are planned in greater detail, said Joyce Jensen, director of education at the Naval Undersea Museum, another official Navy museum, in nearby Keyport. The two museums are managed jointly.

“The displays will be better done,” Jensen said. “I think there is wonderful potential for their permanent exhibits.”