Ninth Naval District

Ninth Naval District

Ninth Naval District was established on 7 May 1903 in accordance with General Order No. 128, signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Charles H. Darling, for command of the United States Great Lakes area, with headquarters at the new naval training station on Lake Michigan near North Chicago, Illinois . Construction of Naval Station Great Lakes was authorized during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who starting in 1897 had expanded U.S. naval sea power in his earlier role as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Ninth Naval District was activated in 1911 as part of an administrative unit called the "Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Naval Districts". In 1920, Ninth District became a separate Navy entity with its own district staff for the Great Lakes region states. Ninth Naval District boundaries expanded during World War II to midwest states beyond the Great Lakes by 1945, including Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Ninth Naval District was disestablished on 30 June 1979, and its functions divided between the Fourth, Eighth, Eleventh and Thirteenth Naval Districts.