USS Plunger (1895)

USS Plunger, ordered in 1895, was the first submarine built for the United States Navy, but she was never completed.

On 3 March 1893, the United States Congress authorized the first "submarine torpedo boat" to be built for the U.S. Navy. John P. Holland won a Navy design competition in 1895 to build it with his design for a submarine powered by a steam engine. The Navy ordered Holland's design as USS Plunger, and awarded a contract for her construction to Holland's firm, the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, on 13 March 1895.

While building Plunger, Holland concluded that steam power would never be suitable in a submarine, and he abandoned construction of Plunger in favor of the construction of another submarine, Holland, powered by a gasoline engine, which he funded personally.

Accordingly, the Navy cancelled the contract for Plunger's construction in April 1900. That same month, it purchased Holland and commissioned her as its first submarine, USS Holland (SS-1).