Southwest Harbor, Maine

Southwest Harbor, Maine

Remarks:

The first Coast Guard presence in the area was a Life-Saving station located on Little Cranberry Island, established by an Act of Congress on June 18th, 1878.  In 1937, the Southwest Harbor complex was created and used as a lighthouse depot by the U.S. Light House Service.  By 1945, the Coast Guard Station on Little Cranberry Island was moved to the facility in Southwest Harbor.

Mission requirements expanded from 1945 to 1966 and the 'Group' concept was established. The administrative and industrial building was completed in 1966 with a new barracks in 1968.  The barracks was expanded and remodeled in 1984, then subsequently renovated in July of 2006.

On June 30th, 2005 Group Southwest Harbor was recommissioned as a Sector Field Office (SFO), a sub-unit under Coast Guard Sector Northern New England, with its own command and operational responsibility.  Exactly one year later, in June of 2006, the SFO transitioned to a logistics and support department of Sector Northern New England.

Co-Located Units (as of 2010)

• Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) Southwest Harbor

• Electronic Systems Sustainment Detatchment (ESD) Southwest Harbor

• Station Southwest Harbor

• USCGC Bridle (WYTL 65607)

Photographs:

Southwest Harbor, 1937

Southwest Harbor, circa 1940

Southwest Harbor, 1959

Unit patch: Electronic Systems Support Detachment (ESD) Southwest Harbor, Maine

Unit patch: SFO Southwest Harbor Maine

Sources:

Station History File, CG Historian’s Office

Dennis L. Noble & Michael S. Raynes.  “Register of the Stations and Keepers of the U.S. Life-Saving Service.”  Unpublished manuscript, compiled circa 1977, CG Historian’s Office collection.

Ralph Shanks, Wick York & Lisa Woo Shanks.  The U.S. Life-Saving Service: Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard.  Petaluma, CA: Costaño Books, 1996.

U.S. Treasury Department: Coast Guard.  Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers and Cadets and Ships and Stations of the United States Coast Guard, July 1, 1941.  Washington, DC: USGPO, 1941.