By Terry Munderloh

The USS Arizona, sunk at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York on June 19, 1915. Next Saturday will be the 95th anniversary of the event. She would be the third ship to bear the Arizona name.

The first ARIZONA was an iron side-wheel steamer purchased by the Government in 1863 and put into service during the Civil War. The second ARIZONA was a first class screw frigate launched in 1865 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

The third ARIZONA, the one we know best, was authorized by an act of congress on March 4, 1913 and her construction was assigned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. When news reached Arizona that the biggest super dreadnaught in the world would be built by the Navy, members of the state government petitioned Secretary Daniels to have the ship bear the name Arizona, after the youngest state. It was officially announced that the vessel would, indeed, bear the name USS Arizona. Work on the ship’s keel commenced in September of 1913 at a cost of seven million dollars. Upon being fitted with guns, armor and other equipment, the ship’s cost to the country was projected at 16 million dollars or more.

As work progressed on the hull, the people of Arizona began preparations for all the pomp and circumstance associated with the launching of a great ship. An original silver service set with the Arizona coat-of-arms etched on each piece was commissioned to grace the Captain’s cabin for state occasions. The 80-piece set contained such necessities as a punch bowl with a Neptune base and mermaid handles, candelabras representative of Saguaro Cacti, serving trays depicting Arizona scenes including one of the old log Governor’s mansion in Prescott and a humidor for cigars etched with a ranching scene. School children donated their pennies to the silver fund and individual citizens promised their dollars, but the bulk of the contributions to pay the $10,000 price tag for the 670 pound silver service came from the six major Arizona mining companies.

As Arizona was a dry state in both senses of the word, a great debate had ensued as to the propriety of using wine to christen the ship. Abstainers were in favor of using water. A compromise was finally reached in that two bottles, one of wine and one of water, would be used, an unprecedented and never again repeated change to the usual custom. The christening bottles, one wrapped in copper bands from Arizona mines and the other encased in silver, were custom ordered from Tiffany’s.

Then there was the matter of who would christen the ship. William W. Ross, a Prescott pharmacist, decided that his 17-year-old daughter, Esther, should be the ship’s sponsor and began petitioning his friends and political associates for support. Governor George W. P. Hunt bestowed that distinguished honor on Esther.

Every day after Esther came home from school, her mother would fill syrup and barley bottles with water for her to throw against a fence post in the back yard to practice for the christening. Originally, water from the Hassayampa River had been selected for the christening but an Arizona citizen who had caught the first water that went over the spillway at Roosevelt dam sent Esther the bottle of water and asked her to use it on the new ship.

As the launch date approached, Esther and her parents, Governor Hunt and an entourage of Arizona dignitaries traveled by rail to New York City where they were quartered at the Waldorf-Astoria and regally wined and dined. The big day was finally here.

(In Part II next week, a description of the christening of the ship and what followed for both Esther and the USS Arizona.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1006pa) Reuse only bypermission.

Miss Esther Ross of Prescott, age 17, was chosen to christen the battleship USS Arizona at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 19, 1915. Here she holds the copper-banded bottle containing the first water over the Roosevelt Dam spillway to be used in the christening.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1006pe) Reuse only bypermission.

Esther Ross shown here in the jacket and hat chosen for her to wear at the USS Arizona christening in New York in 1915.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Google images anonymous) Reuse only by permission.

Part of the Arizona delegation sent to New York for the christening of the USS Arizona: Miss Eva Behn, Mrs. W. W. Ross (Esther’s mother), the Honorable Josephus Daniels (Sec. of the Navy), Gov. George W. P. Hunt and Miss Esther Ross.