Bremerton Navy Museum grows 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, visitors see the wooden half-hull model for the submarine 0-2 while walking through two floors of exhibits. Builders used the 5-foot long piece as a blueprint for building the submarine, which was launched in 1918.

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.

Taking a visitor through the museum, Nelson’s pride in the museum, its collection and its building was reflected in his beaming smile. “We are well on our way to being a first-class museum,” he said.

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 a federal infusion of $1 million 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.”

The first permanent exhibit will depict what life is like aboard the Stennis, the aircraft carrier, which calls Bremerton its homeport. The exhibit is slated to open next year in late summer.

“Two years from now, it will be considerably different. Our displays are trying to educate and promote the Navy’s history around Puget Sound,” Nelson said.

“Now we have planned exhibits,” he said. “If (an item) doesn’t fit the theme of the exhibit, it goes in storage until it is needed.”

Nelson has been involved with the museum since 1994 and a board member since 1998. Not bad considering he is retired from the U.S. Army. Don’t worry, he’s learned to tell port from starboard.

“Really, it was the only activity in town that interested me,” he said of his ties to the museum.

The new museum also has attracted the interest of visitors to Bremerton. “In the past year, we’ve had a marked increase in the number of people (visiting),” he said. “We’re looking forward to a considerable increase.”

That is sweet music to the ears of Jean Boyle, director of tourism development for the Kitsap Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau.

“It’s more focused. It will have more funding. It’s a beautiful building. It makes a good draw to anyone who has an interest in military history,” Boyle said.

The Bremerton area also is becoming a destination for military buffs. In addition to the two Navy museums, the USS Turner Joy is tied up at the Bremerton waterfront. Visitors can tour the Vietnam-era destroyer.

But even with 12,000 square feet of room for displays, many of the museum’s 12,000 artifacts are in the basement. There amid piles of boxes and storage cabinets and large items, collection managers Heather Mygatt and Kathrine Young are doing an inventory. They are cataloging and assessing the condition of each item, a job they estimate will take two years to complete.

Mygatt has been with the museum since May, and Young came on just a month and a half ago. But they already have their favorites among all the items.

Donning white cloth gloves, Mygatt carefully removed a pair of eyeglasses and small diary from a box. They belonged to Navy Lt. Ambrose Barkley Wyckoff. It was his recommendation that led the Navy in 1891 to buy the 190 1/4 acres on Sinclair Inlet that would become the shipyard.

Young said they hope to scan the pages of the diary some day, so the content can be digitally preserved and copies of pages possibly put on display.

They have yet to open the leather-bound diary, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, because the staff is not sure what condition the pages are in, Young said.

Mygatt said Wyckoff’s items reflect the birth of the Navy’s presence in Puget Sound to which she has a deep connection.

“I grew up in the area, and my dad was in the Navy. If (Wyckoff) hadn’t come here, the shipyard might not have been here. Think of how Bremerton has developed because of the Navy.”