Remember the Maine!

On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded and sank in the harbor at Havana, Cuba, triggering the start of the Spanish-American War.

Although we now refer to the Maine as a battleship, she was originally designated as a heavy armored cruiser. She and her sister ship, the USS Texas, were considered to be battleship prototypes, and were sometimes referred to as second class battleships.

Maine was 319 feet long, and had a beam of 57 feet. She displaced 6,682 tons. Her main guns were four 10-inch 35 caliber, and her secondary guns were seven 6 pounders and eight 1 pounders. She was manned by 31 officers and 343 enlisted. Maine carried 896 tons of coal, and her reciprocating steam engines gave her a designed speed of 17 knots.

The Maine was commissioned in September, 1895. There are very few good photographs of the Maine, probably because of her relatively short career. This picture is one panel of a stereoptican card.

A second battleship Maine (BB-10) was commissioned in 1902. Occasionally one of the many photographs of the second Maine is mis-labelled as the original. The easiest way to tell the difference is that the 1902 Maine had 3 smokestacks.