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| Industry | Shipbuilding |
|---|---|
| Founded | February 1941; 84 years ago (1941-02) nearWagner's Point, Fairfield, and Brooklyn-Curtis Bay in south Baltimore, Maryland |
| Defunct | 1945 (1945) |
Number of employees | 27,000 |
| Parent | Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company (Bethlehem Steel Corporation ofBethlehem, Pennsylvania) |
TheBethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard ofBaltimore, Maryland, was ashipyard in theUnited States from 1941 until 1945. Located on the south shore of the Middle Branch of thePatapsco River which serves as theBaltimore Harbor, it was owned by theBethlehem Shipbuilding Company, created by theBethlehem Steel Corporation ofBethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had operated a major waterfront steel mill outside Baltimore to the southeast atSparrows Point, Maryland inBaltimore County since the 1880s.
The yard is now the location to the west of several heavy industrial firms with a focus on petro-chemicals, a laterMaryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, which endured into the 1990s, and the underground south entrance of theBaltimore Harbor Tunnel, built in 1956–1957, carryingInterstate 895 and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway through and under the city in the majorEast Coast thoroughfare.
Bethlehem-Fairfield was one of two new emergency shipyards, established by theMaritime Commission under theEmergency Shipbuilding program, in 1941. The other shipyard was theOregon Shipbuilding Corporation,Portland, Oregon.[1]
Because Baltimore Harbor is so old (dating to 1706) there was not sufficient space to build both the shipways and the fabrication plant in the same waterfront area. The fabricating plant was only less than two miles away further south in adjacent Curtis Bay at a formerGeorge Pullman railroad car wheel foundry dating from 1887, greatly expanded in 1916, with massive huge shops beforeWorld War I, but now empty during theGreat Depression of the 1930s. This proved an advantageous situation though, which was better than other shipyards on the East Coast whose fabricating plants were usually located some further miles away. This allowed for easy transportation by railroad cars of theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad through itsCurtis Bay Yards of the preassembled components and other sections needed for the assembly of the ship hulls to the storage yard at Fairfield where they would later be moved by cranes to one of the 13 ways used for erecting the ships, this was later expanded to 16 ways. Additional thousands of temporary wood-frame style barracks were constructed plus standardized brick row homes and housing projects soon filled woods and meadows of the neighboring Brooklyn-Curtis Bay-Fairfield-Wagner's Point waterfront communities dating to 1853 / 1887 / 1890s in southern Baltimore city, recently annexed in 1919 from neighboring ruralAnne Arundel County[1][2]
On 27 September 1941, Fairfield hostedLiberty Fleet Day, with the launching of their firstLiberty Ship,SS Patrick Henry. She was the first of an eventual 384 Liberty ships built there, along with 45LSTs, and 94Victory ships.[1][2]
Online resources
39°14′42.21″N76°34′45.62″W / 39.2450583°N 76.5793389°W /39.2450583; -76.5793389
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