Washington Navy Yard (Boundary Increase) National Register of Historic Places Listing

In 1814, British soldiers watched the Washington Navy Yard burn. American forces set the fire themselves to keep warships out of enemy hands. It rebuilt, of course. But by the twentieth century, the yard had outgrown its original boundaries. That is where NRHP listing 07001356 comes in. This boundary increase, approved in 2008, finally recognized how the yard morphed from a wooden ship slipway into a sprawling, smoke-belching weapons factory during the World Wars. It added dozens of acres. We are talking about historic industrial structures. Think massive steel-frame machine shops. Think heavy rail tracks snaking between brick masonry walls. The expansion captured the grit of the Naval Gun Factory. This facility churned out the massive 14-inch railway guns used on the Western Front in 1918.

The expansion specifically pulled in the West Yard. This area functioned as the nerve center for ordnance testing and maritime innovation. Inside these boundaries, engineers built the worlds first experimental model basin in 1898. They towed miniature hulls. They pulled these wooden models through a 470-foot water tank to test hull drag. The boundary increase also saved structures like Building 170. A behemoth of a machine shop. Its towering glass roof monitors let in natural light so precision machinists could see their work. Those workers held tolerances to thousandths of an inch. Without this specific amendment, we would lose the physical record of the Navy's transition from sail to steam. It is not about pretty brick. It is about the raw industrial muscle that won global conflicts.