Uss Massachusetts (bb-59) National Historic Landmark
Fast battleship of the United States Navy in Fall River, Massachusetts. Added to the National Register in 1976, and a National Historic Landmark.




What it is
USS Massachusetts, hull number BB-59, is the third of four South Dakota-class fast battleships built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s. The first American battleships designed after the Washington treaty system began to break down in the mid-1930s, they took advantage of an escalator clause that allowed increasing the main battery to 16-inch (406 mm) guns, but refusal to authorize larger battleships kept their displacement close to the Washington limit of 35,000 long tons (36,000 t). A requirement to be armored against the same caliber of guns as they carried, combined with the displacement restriction, resulted in cramped ships, a problem that was exacerbated by wartime modifications that considerably strengthened their anti-aircraft batteries and significantly increased their crews.
Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The record
| Property type | Structure |
| Address | Battleship Cove, Fall River, MA |
| County | Bristol County |
| Listed | Sep 30, 1976 |
| Reference number | 76002269 |
| Type of place | battleship, museum ship, preserved watercraft |
| Designations | National Historic Landmark |
| Contributing resources | 1 structures |
| Standing | Yes |
The nomination form, the document that argues why this place matters, is in the National Archives: Read the nomination ↗
Visiting
| Address | Battleship Cove, Fall River, MA |
| Coordinates | 41.70683, -71.16295 · Directions ↗ |
| Nearest national park unit | New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park · 13 mi · on Park Atlas |
| Federal campgrounds nearby | West Hill Park 36 mi |
Explore
Map
Nearby in Bristol County



Reference
Sources
Location, dates, type and contributing counts come from the National Park Service's National Register spatial data. Construction date, architect, style, photograph and encyclopedia link come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, matched on reference number 76002269. Nothing here is transcribed by hand. The description under "What it is" is the opening of the Wikipedia article, CC BY-SA.