The battleship USS Wyoming (BB-32) was launched 108 years ago, on May 25, 1911, at the William Cramp & Sons shipyard in Philadelphia, as noted by the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River.
Dorothy Knight, the daughter of Jesse Knight, Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court from 1898 until his death in 1905, was the new warship’s sponsor. Also on hand for the christening was Wyoming governor Joseph M. Carey.
At the time of her commissioning, the Wyoming was one of the most powerful battleships in the world. Her main battery consisted of 12 12-inch guns, and she was also armed with 21 5-inch guns and two submerged 21-inch torpedo tubes. She was 562 feet long and displaced over 27,000 tons at full load.
The Wyoming finished her long and distinguished career not as a battleship, but a gunnery training ship before and during World War II and was credited with training thousands of anti-aircraft gunners. After the war she was decommissioned and scrapped in 1947.
A total of four United States warships have borne the name “Wyoming,” though only three of them were named for the 44th state. The staff of the Sweetwater County Museum is compiling information and photographs of all four for an article in the near future.
