Report: Calif. group wants USS Olympia

Associated Press

VALLEJO, Calif. – A Vallejo group wants to give the USS Olympia, the historic 19th-century warship now moored in Philadelphia, a new home in the San Francisco Bay area.

The Navy Yard Association – a group of former naval shipyard workers on Mare Island – plans to apply for the Olympia when bidding for the ship is opened in February.

The 244-foot-long ship, launched in 1892 at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, is currently moored on the Delaware River as part of the Independence Seaport Museum.

But museum officials are looking for a new steward for the cruiser because they are unable to raise the millions of dollars needed to dry dock the ship and repair its hull and deck.

The Olympia, the only surviving steel warship of its era, saw action in the 1898 Spanish-American War, serving as Commodore George Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay.