USS Oregon was laid down in San Francisco in 1891, immediately in the wake of the publication of the first volume of Alfred Thayer Mahan's Influence of Seapower on History. USS Oregon carried a heavy main armament, displacing 11,000 tons, carried 4 13" and 8 8" guns, and could make 16 knots.  She represented the starting point of the US Navy's creation of the world's most powerful navy.  

On February 15, 1898, in the context of increasing tensions between Spain and the United States over Spanish control of Cuba, the armored cruiser USS Maine blew up in Havana.  USS Oregon raced from the Pacific to the Atlantic at the outbreak of hostilities.  Her captain opted to take the Straits of Magellan to save time, which put the battleship in grave danger during a gale. Nevertheless, she survived and arrived in the Cuba theater of operations on May 24. USS Oregon took part in the destruction of the Spanish Fleet at Santiago, Cuba, and is credited for actions against the Spanish vessels Infata, Maria, Teresa, Viscaya, Almirante, Oquendo, Pluton, and Furor in that engagement.  She was called a "McKinley's bulldog" at the battle. She appeared as a tough dog, speeding into a fight, and the white wake off her bow was said to appear as a "bone" clenched in her teeth.

The experience of the battleship Oregon was critical in building support for the construction of the Panama Canal, as the existence of a canal would have cut three weeks off Oregon's travel time. Consequently, the United States fomented a rebellion in Colombia that led to the independence of Panama, and purchased French equipment and property in what came to be known as the Canal Zone.

USS Oregon was redeployed to the Pacific after the war, and spent considerable time in East Asia, including duty on station during the Boxer Rebellion.  In 1900, an uncharted rock nearly sent Oregon to the bottom. In 1906, Oregon decommissioned.  Oregon went from construction and commissioning to decommissioning and obsolescence in a mere ten years. She was refit and recommissioned in 1911, decommissioned again in 1914, and commissioned/decommissioned several more time before 1920. In 1923, Oregon was demilitarized and loaned to the state of Oregon as a floating museum.  She was moored for what was expected to be a permanent stay in Portland, Oregon. However, World War II intervened, and the USN decided that Oregon was more useful as scrap metal than as a war monument.

Oddly, the Navy determined that it didn't actually need the scrap, and the process was halted after Oregon's guns and superstructure had been removed.  The hulk then was reclassified and used as a munitions ship in the Pacific campaign. Moored in Guam after the war, her hulk broke free during a storm and floated about the Pacific for a month in 1948. In 1956 the hulk was sold to a Japanese scrapyard, and Oregon's story ended.

USS Oregon's foremast survives today in Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. In 1992, an author convinced a young woman that the entire battleship was actually buried beneath the Park, with only the mast above ground.

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This model feature plank-on-frame construction.  All parts are wooden and metal.

 40" L x 19"W x 22" T          $1,650        S & H is $130     
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