Bremerton Chosen as the Pacific Fleet's Great Coaling Station
The navy yard on Puget Sound begins surveying a $2,000,000, 200,000-ton coaling plant — a bet that the fleet's future lies in the Pacific.
SEATTLE. — The Puget Sound navy yard, at Bremerton, will become one of the chief coaling stations of the Pacific fleet if present plans of the navy department are carried out. Under directions of the navy department the civil engineers' force of the yard have begun a preliminary survey for a 200,000-ton coaling plant, to be located at the west end of the navy yard immediately east of the present yard coal bunkers.
Such a plant, it is estimated, would cost close to $2,000,000. The present coaling pier of the yard has a capacity of 25,000 tons under cover, with room for 25,000 tons more on adjacent ground.
“The Puget Sound navy yard, at Bremerton, will become one of the chief coaling stations of the Pacific fleet.”
Bremerton's selection as the Pacific's coaling hub set the course for a century of naval presence on Puget Sound — the yard is still there, now servicing nuclear carriers instead of coal bunkers. The 1910 bet on Pacific sea power reads like a preview of the region's modern defense economy.
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