Ingalls Iron Works, Decatur AL

Ingalls Iron Works was originally established in 1910, by Robert Ingalls, in Titusville AL, and grew to be the largest steel company in the region.  The shipyard in Decatur AL, on the Tennessee River, was started in 1937.  As WWII approached, the yard's small size forced Ingalls to look for a bigger site, first in Birmingham, then in Chickasaw, and finally in Pascagoula MS.  Ingalls' shipbuilding interests were sold to Litton Industries in 1961, which sold the Decatur yard to Trinity Industries in 1981, who promptly closed it.  The yard is now Ingalls Park: see it from the air on Google here.  The fabrication plant in Bainbridge GA was turned over to barge building in 1981, just in time for the end of the boom, and appears to have been in operation for only a year.  The Decatur yard used the same series of hull numbers as the Pascagoula yard.