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August 4 marks the 227th birthday of the US Coast Guard, the nation’s oldest maritime agency. Originally part of the Department of the Treasury, the USCG started out as the United States Revenue Cutter Service, a 10-vessel armed customs enforcement service under Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton tasked with enforcing the Tariff Act. The 100-man agency was responsible for collecting the new federal government’s main source of revenue – import tariffs – and stop smugglers from bypassing customs agents.
For eight years, they also had to protect the entire eastern seaboard.
From 1790, when the Continental Navy was disbanded, to 1798, when the United States Navy was founded, the Revenue Cutter Service was the only US sailing fighting force.
Eventually, the Revenue Cutter Service’s role broadened to maritime safety as it merged with the United States Life-Saving Service and was officially renamed the United States Coast Guard in 1915. In a bureaucratic oddity, the USCG was described in the official act of Congress as “a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times” yet continued to operate under the Department of Treasury.
In 1920, Congress held hearings to consider merging the Coast Guard into the Navy, but the idea never moved beyond the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.
The Coast Guard’s role expanded twice more when it absorbed the United States Lighthouse Service in 1939 and the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation in 1942.
Throughout the years, the Coast Guard has served a military role, including during World Wars I and II and Vietnam, when operational control was temporarily transferred to the Navy until war’s end. A Coast Guard flotilla rescued over 400 Allied airmen and sailors during the D-Day invasion. The Coast Guard has played a significant role in other military campaigns such as Operation Desert Storm and the 1999 Kosovo campaign, as well as domestic rescue operations such as the Great Flood of 1993 that closed over 1,250 miles of rivers and claimed 47 lives.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, control of the Coast Guard moved in 2003 to the newly-created Department of Homeland Security. While the Coast Guard is still officially a law enforcement agency under DHS, it is considered a military branch because authority transfers to the Department of Defense in times of conflict or war.
Today, the Coast Guard is ever-vigilant to protect not only the shores around the US but also inland waterways and carry out its law enforcement and rescue roles wherever called upon.
Happy birthday, United States Coast Guard!