The Navy's history in the Pacific Northwest began in the early 1890s, when the Navy purchased 190 acres of wilderness and established it as Naval Station Puget Sound – Bremerton. In 1896, its first dry dock (now Puget Sound Naval Shipyard) was built, which played a crucial factor during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
The war years witnessed an increase of Navy activity in the Pacific Northwest from the institution of Pacific Coast Torpedo Station – Keyport, near the beginning of World War I, in 1914 all the way to World War II with the commissioning of Naval Magazine Indian Island (NMII) in 1941.
In 1942, Bangor was introduced as an ammunition depot during the war, and was recognized in 1944 as an official naval magazine. Bangor became the homeport for the first squadron of Trident submarines in 1973, and was officially commissioned Naval Submarine Base – Bangor in 1977.
Naval Station Bremerton was activated as the Navy’s newest homeport in 1998.
In 2002, the Navy launched Sea Enterprise (an initiative to establish principles that reward greater effectiveness while eliminating institutional hurdles to innovation), which ultimately led to NBK’s organizational structure, as we know it.