United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum

The United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum occupies a fitting berth at the former Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, once a major center of American naval construction. Its core artifact is USS Salem (CA-139), a Des Moines–class heavy cruiser laid down here in 1945 and brought back in 1994 to serve as the museum’s centerpiece. The ship’s 717-foot hull functions as both exhibit space and historical document, preserving mid-20th-century naval engineering in steel, wiring runs, compartment layouts, and weapons foundations. Exhibits aboard Salem address the history of large cruisers and the broader output of Fore River, including other notable cruisers built in the yard, and trace the evolution of U.S. naval firepower, crew life, and Cold War–era surface combatant design. For enthusiasts, the museum also represents the afterlife of an industrial complex that closed in 1986, marking the end of more than a century of shipbuilding along the Fore River. Standing at Pier 3, the site ties together coastal geography, heavy industry, and naval service into a single preserved environment, where a warship and the yard that produced it remain physically united.