The Submarine Capital of the World — where the first nuclear submarine slid into the Thames in 1954. Groton, Connecticut sits on the east bank of the Thames River, on a deep-water harbor that has been building and berthing ships for three centuries. It is the place where the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, was launched in 1954 — and where she still floats today, open to anyone who wants to walk her decks at the Submarine Force Museum. Groton has earned the title Submarine Capital of the World for a simple reason: the boats that disappear beneath the world's oceans have been built and based here for generations. But the town's salt runs deeper than steel — back to a 1705 shipbuilding-and-whaling village, and to the hallowed ground of Fort Griswold.
The Pequot people lived along these coves and rivers long before the colonists — their presence at the Gungywamp site inland reaches back thousands of years. Groton was settled as part of New London and incorporated as its own town in 1705, growing into one of New England's busy Thames-River shipbuilding and whaling ports. On September 6, 1781, that prosperity made it a target: a British force under the turncoat Benedict Arnold raided the Thames, and at Fort Griswold roughly 165 Connecticut militia under Colonel William Ledyard made an outnumbered last stand. They were overwhelmed, and most of the defenders fell. The town never forgot them — in 1830 it raised a 135-foot granite obelisk, the Groton Monument, over the battlefield to the dead. A U.S. Navy yard followed on the Thames in 1868, and in the twentieth century Groton became the cradle of the American submarine.
Why People Visit Groton Connecticut
Groton draws people who love the sea and the stories that come with it. It is the Submarine Capital of the World, with the first nuclear submarine open to walk through; it is a Revolutionary battlefield with a monument to its fallen; and it is a working shoreline of deep harbor, forts, beaches, and lighthouse points. Visitors come for the rare combination — naval history you can stand inside, colonial history you can climb, and a Connecticut coast you can walk all in one town on the Thames.
