From the 2,716-acre Naval Magazine Indian Island in the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula to the Navy’s largest west coast underground fuel storage facility near Orchard Point at theManchester Fuel Department of Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, the Navy has a far-reaching presence inWest Puget Sound. The consolidation of Naval Submarine Base Bangor, Naval UnderseaWarfare Center Keyport and Naval Station Bremerton in 2004 formed Naval Base Kitsap: the largest naval installation in the Northwest. It is home to four flag officers; many major afloat commands including a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and all three types of submarines found in the U.S. fleet; and 60 tenant shore commands including Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility; Naval UnderseaWarfare Center Division, Keyport; Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Puget Sound; and StrategicWeapons Facility, Pacific.

Additionally, centrally located between Bangor and Bremerton, is Naval Hospital Bremerton, a fully accredited, community-based acute care and obstetrical hospital, operating 35 in-patient beds and hosting a variety of ambulatory, acute and specialty clinics. And, just across the Hood Canal Bridge and north, up the Olympic Peninsula, is NavalMagazine Indian Island, a large ammunition facility and ordnance provider to United States Forces worldwide, which is also home to the Department of Defense’s largest industrial crane—Big Blue.

The Navy's permanent presence in West Puget Sound dates back to 1891 when theNavy invested less than ten thousand dollars in 190 acres of Pacific Northwest wilderness and established Naval Station Puget Sound. After initial surveying by Lt. Charles Wilkes and selection by a commission chaired by Alfred T. Mahan, Lt. AmbroseWyckoff was its founding commandant. The first dry dock, of what is now known as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, was completed by 1896 in time to support the Spanish-American War in 1898.

In 1914, the PacificCoast Torpedo Stationwas commissioned at Keyport. As the Pacific Theater of operations grew in importance to national security in the first half of the 1900’s, so too did the Navy grow in Puget Sound with the commissioning of Naval Magazine Indian Island in 1941. Soon thereafter, Bangor began operating as an ammunition depot and was later commissioned as a naval magazine in 1944.

Naval presence in the area continued to ebb and flow as the national security situation changed over the years. In 1976, funds were authorized to build what is now known as the Naval Hospital Bremerton at Jackson Park. The hospital originally began in 1900 as a makeshift hospital aboard USS NIPSIC, a converted brigantine moored at Puget Sound Naval Station. A larger, shore-side hospital was built on Puget Sound Naval Station and was fully utilized until the late 1970s. With the introduction of the Trident submarine, Bangor, and subsequently the Trident Refit Facility-the predecessor to IntermediateMaintenance Facility-experienced a major surge of growth when the base was selected to homeport the first squadron of Trident submarines. Bangor was formally commissioned Naval Submarine Base Bangor in 1977. Recently, in accordance with the Navy’s Sea Enterprise initiative to optimize resource allocation, Naval Base Kitsap was established on June 4, 2004.