The history of Point Loma Naval Base begins in 1795. The Spanish began building a fort at the base of Point Guijarros, opposite the tip of North Island (Coronado). This fort was built on the land which is today known as Ballast Point.
Fort Guijarros was later finished in 1798 and then abandoned by the Mexicans in 1845. In 1846 United States
Capt. Samuel Du Pont, entered the abandoned land where the fort once stood and raised the American flag. Shortly after in 1848 the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the
Mexican–American War and the Americans claimed Point Loma. In February 1852 President
Millard Fillmore set aside the southern portion of
Point Loma of about for
military purposes. Subsequently, it was assigned to the U.S. Army and named 'Fort Rosecrans', after
Major General William Rosecrans, an 1842 graduate of the
U.S. Military Academy. In 1898 the
Army built a coast artillery installation on the site which remained active until 1945, when the University of California Division of War Research and the Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory occupied the site as the
Navy Electronics Laboratory (NEL). NEL was renamed the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC) in 1977 and incorporated into the
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in 1997. In 1932, the site of Fort Rosecrans was registered as
California Historical Landmark #62. From February 1940 through October 1944 Fort Rosecrans was garrisoned by the
19th Coast Artillery Regiment. Submarine Group, San Diego was established in 1946, and Submarine Flotilla 1 was activated in 1949. In 1959 Fort Rosecrans was turned over to the
United States Navy. The Navy Submarine Support Facility was established in November 1963 on of the land.
Bathyscaphe Trieste arrived at NEL in 1958; and modified
Bathyscaphe Trieste II was based here from 1965 to 1984. On 27 November 1974 the base was re-designated a shore command, serving assigned submarines, Submarine Group Five, Submarine Squadron Three, Submarine Development Group One, the Submarine Training Facility and later, Submarine Squadron Eleven. On 1 October 1981, the base was designated as
Naval Submarine Base San Diego (NAVSUBASE San Diego). Starting in April 1995, several commands were decommissioned or their homeports were changed to meet the post-
Cold War downsizing requirements of the Navy. Commands throughout San Diego were regionalized to provide equal or better base services while managing a reduced budget. The six naval installations on Point Loma were consolidated as Naval Base Point Loma on 1 October 1998. On March 13, 2023, Naval Base Point Loma was visited by President
Joe Biden along with the prime ministers of Australia and the United Kingdom. The occasion was to announce an agreement among the allies to provide nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia. This is believed to be the first time a sitting president has visited Naval Base Point Loma since its establishment in 1998. ==Gallery==