ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\nIn the middle of the country, far from any ocean or sea, the U.S. Navy found an unlikely home.<\/p>\n
“Chicago’s love affair with the Navy started over 130 years ago,” said U.S. Navy Reserve Cmdr. Jeffrey Gray.<\/p>\n
From the Spanish American War in 1898 to World Wars I and II, the Chicago area has long been a major player in protecting the country.<\/p>\n
“The importance of the Navy is we keep the sea lanes open… The other services, they’re based on the ground. In the Navy. we take our home with us,” Gray said. “We’re the away game. We’d rather fight away than have to fight at home.”<\/p>\n
Just north of the city sits Naval Station Great Lakes. The base opened in 1911 as hub for training and innovation.<\/p>\n
“On the Great Lakes, there were all these steamers that were just not being used at that time, and so, they said, let’s get these steamers, take off the top and put a landing top on that,” Gray said.<\/p>\n
And just like that, two freshwater aircraft carriers, the USS Wolverine and USS Sable were born. The two carriers helped get 17,000 pilots trained.<\/p>\n
It was the only place in the world where pilots practiced carrier landings without ever seeing the ocean.<\/p>\n
Today, that legacy lives on just north of the city at Naval Station Great Lakes, the Navy’s only boot camp, where every enlisted sailor begins their journey.<\/p>\n
Then, in 1916, Navy Pier opened.<\/p>\n
“But it wasn’t called Navy Pier at that time; it was called Municipal Pier,” Gray said.<\/p>\n
Navy Pier served as a massive training center, where more than ten thousand recruits learned everything from navigation to gunnery.<\/p>\n
“The city decided they wanted to rename Municipal Pier, to what is now known as Navy Pier,” Gray said.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Navy Pier incorporated more entertainment and tourism, evolving to what we know it as today. But it still stands as a reminder of Chicago’s robust naval history.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2025 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — Monday is the U.S. Navy’s 250th birthday, and Chicago’s connection to the service runs deep.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":301323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[153187,960,5462,153183,5386,1818,106781,5406,106782,106785,153184,58984,153185,153186],"class_list":{"0":"post-301322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-153187","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-news","11":"tag-happy-birthday-us-navy","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-naval-station-great-lakes","15":"tag-navy-pier","16":"tag-north-chicago","17":"tag-north-chicago-illinois","18":"tag-u-s-navy-birthday","19":"tag-us-navy","20":"tag-us-navy-250th-anniversary","21":"tag-us-navy-birthday"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115369826318544278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}