Indian Head Navy Base Celebrates 120 Years
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS100923-14
9/23/2010
By Jonathan McDonald, Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs
INDIAN HEAD, Md (NNS) -- Naval Support Facility (NSF) Indian Head, Md., celebrates 120 years of naval operations from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 25.
The event will take place at the Indian Head Pavilion in Indian Head, Md. The festivities are free and open to the public and will include Navy bands, food, historic information, and family activities.
The Indian Head facility began as the Naval Proving Grounds in September 1890, when Ensign Robert B. Dashiell was sent to southern Maryland to find a suitable location, close enough to the Washington Navy Yard, yet remote enough to safely test guns built there. The Indian Head peninsula met the requirements, and by 1891, the proving grounds were operational.
In 1921, gun testing moved to Indian Head Lower Station (now known as Dahlgren, Va.), but the Indian Head facility remained a vital part of the Department of the Navy's arsenal. The facility shifted its focus to the production of smokeless power, and by World War II, was a major supplier of munitions to the Navy.
Today, the base's largest activity, Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (IHD NSWC), is the energetics center of excellence for the Department of Defense. Energetics are explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, reactive materials, related chemicals and fuels and their application in propulsion systems and ordnance. Since 1985, 75 percent of all explosives deployed in U.S. weapons have been developed by Indian Head Division.
The event will be celebrated as a birthday bash, and will feature local leaders and commanders, state representatives, and speakers talking about the history of the division.
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