On August 3, 1886, Congress authorized the construction of two advanced warships: the second-class battleship USS Texas and the armored cruiser USS Maine. This decision marked the birth of the “New Navy,” transforming the United States from a vulnerable coastal defense force into an emerging global naval power. Prior to 1886, America’s fleet consisted largely of aging wooden vessels leftover from the Civil War.
Building the Texas and Maine spurred the domestic steel industry to modernize rapidly, producing high-strength armor plating and heavy naval guns on an unprecedented scale. The Maine would later become an enduring icon of American history when its mysterious explosion in Havana Harbor in 1898—widely blamed on Spain at the time, though likely caused by an internal accident—served as the catalyst for the Spanish-American War.
