Quincy Shipyard Launches First Nuclear Powered Cruiser
On this day in 1959, the nation's first nuclear-powered cruiser was launched from Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. With its deep and sheltered harbor, Quincy was an ideal site for shipbuilding. Men had been building and launching boats there since the English first settled in the area in 1640. But the industry really boomed in the late nineteenth century when inventor Thomas Watson started a company to make engines for boats. For the next 100 years, life in Quincy revolved around the shipyards, which reached their peak during World War II when employment topped 32,000, including 1,200 women. Although the yard closed in 1986, Quincy's shipbuilding heritage is kept alive by the U.S. Naval and Shipbuilding Museum on the Fore River site.
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