Figure 1: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) making 12.4 knots during trials off San Francisco, California, in October 1902. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, 1971. The original print is in the Union Iron Works scrapbook, Volume II, page 166. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) making 12.4 knots during trials near San Francisco, California, in October 1902. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, 1971. The original print is in the Union Iron Works scrapbook, Volume II, page 166. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: View on board USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10), looking forward, showing water coming over her bow while she was running trials off San Francisco, California, in October 1902. Note the ship's 12-inch gun turret at right. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, 1971. The original print is in the Union Iron Works scrapbook, Volume II, page 166. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: View on board USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10), looking forward, while she was running trials off San Francisco, California, in October 1902. Note water pouring over her bow bulwark and men sitting on the 12-inch gun at right. Courtesy of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, 1971. The original print is in the Union Iron Works scrapbook, Volume II, page 167. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) moored off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, on 12 February 1903. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) moored off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, on 12 February 1903. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, circa 1902-1908. The original photograph is printed on a silver-finish paper. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt, USN (Medical Corps). US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) in a west coast harbor, circa 1902-1908. Donation of Rear Admiral Ammen Farrenholt, USN (Medical Corps), 1936. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) post card published by Edward H. Mitchell, San Francisco, California, featuring a color-tinted photograph of Wyoming taken circa 1902-1908. Donated by USS Parsons (DD-949), 1967. The Naval Historical Center's Photograph Collection contains another copy of this postcard that is postmarked Tacoma, Washington, 1 June 1908. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) in 1904, place unknown. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10), now re-named USS Cheyenne, moored off Bremerton, Washington, while serving as a training ship for the Washington State Naval Militia, circa 1910-1913.The original is a screened sepia-toned image, printed on a contemporary post card. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: USS Cheyenne (Monitor No. 10) at anchor in a west coast harbor, circa 1916. Collection of Thomas P. Naughton, 1973. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 13: USS Cheyenne (Monitor No. 10) with a submarine alongside, circa 1918-1919. The submarine is probably one of the Division 3 boats tended by Cheyenne: K-3, K-4, K-7, or K-8. Location may be Key West, Florida. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 14: USS Cheyenne (Monitor No. 10), at right, with a submarine in the foreground, circa 1918-1919. The submarine is probably one of the Division 3 boats tended by Cheyenne: K-3, K-4, K-7 or K-8. Location may be Key West, Florida. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 15: USS Cheyenne (IX-4), inboard at left; USS S-12 (SS-117), outboard at left; and USS Dale (DD-290) at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, on 14 June 1926. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
USS Wyoming (Monitor No. 10) was a 3,225-ton Arkansas class monitor built by the Union Iron Works at San Francisco, California, and was commissioned on 8 December 1902. She was approximately 255 feet long and 50 feet wide, had a top speed of 12.5 knots, and had a crew of 220 officers and men. Wyoming was armed with two 12-inch guns, four 4-inch guns, and two 6-pounders.
After fitting out at the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, Wyoming completed her shakedown cruise off California and spent the bulk of her time steaming along America’s west coast. Since monitors were terrible sea boats and always ran the danger of foundering in heavy seas, Wyoming generally remained in coastal waters. A few monitors did attempt, and successfully completed, long open-ocean voyages, but these were the exceptions and not the norm. These ships generally hugged the coastline and were meant purely for coastal defense work.
In the fall of 1903, civil war threatened to divide Columbia, placing American lives and property in danger. Wyoming was ordered to steam south as part of the US Navy’s reaction to the political unrest that was tearing Columbia apart. Wyoming reached Columbian waters on 13 November 1903 and her presence, along with other ships from the US Navy, allowed Panama to declare its independence from Columbia. Wyoming remained in what were now Panamanian waters until the spring of 1904, to ensure the security of the new government in Panama. This was probably one of the most famous examples of American “gunboat diplomacy,” because independence for Panama eventually allowed the United States to build the Panama Canal. After the political situation had stabilized sufficiently within Panama, Wyoming left on 19 April 1904. Wyoming returned north and, after making a few stops in Mexico, arrived at San Diego, California, on 14 May.
Wyoming spent the rest of 1904 and part of 1905 patrolling off America’s west coast while also making occasional visits to Mexico and Central America. She was decommissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 29 August 1905. Wyoming was re-commissioned on 8 October 1908 and was the first ship in the US Navy to be converted from coal-fired engines to oil. While acting as a test ship for this new technology, Wyoming was renamed Cheyenne on 1 January 1909 to free her name up for a new battleship. After undergoing more testing, Cheyenne was decommissioned once again on 13 November 1909.
Cheyenne was re-commissioned but placed in reserve on 11 July 1910. The monitor was loaned to the Washington State naval militia in 1911 and served as a training ship until February 1913, when she was converted into a submarine tender. In 1914, Cheyenne assisted in the evacuation of refugees from Mexico, which at that time was engulfed in a violent civil war. Cheyenne continued working as a submarine tender for the next few years and during World War I served in the Atlantic, tending to submarines in the Gulf of Mexico.
After the war ended, Cheyenne was transferred to Division 1 of the American Patrol Detachment. While serving with that unit, Cheyenne was sent to Tampico, Mexico, to protect American lives and property from 15 January to 9 October 1919. After that, she headed north along America’s east coast and was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, on 3 January 1920. While inactive at Philadelphia, Cheyenne was reclassified IX-4 as a miscellaneous auxiliary on 17 July 1920.
Cheyenne was re-commissioned at Philadelphia on 22 September 1920 and the ship was towed to Baltimore, Maryland. Once there, Cheyenne was used as a training ship for US Navy reservists until 1925. On 21 January 1926, Cheyenne was towed to Philadelphia and was decommissioned for the last time on 1 June. The old monitor languished there for more than ten years before being struck from the Navy list on 25 January 1937. USS Cheyenne was the last of the Navy’s big-gun monitors and her stripped-down hulk was sold for scrap on 20 April 1939.
