Decommissioning
After decommissioning in 1961 she was mothballed in the South Boston Naval Annex and eventually laid up in the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Philadelphia, where she remained until 2006. After an attempt to turn her into a museum ship in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, failed, she was towed to Brownsville, Texas, for scrapping, and arrived there 7 September. By July 2007, she had been completely broken up. Her status officially changed to "disposed of by scrapping, dismantling" on 16 August 2007. Two of her dual 5"/38 gun mounts were donated to the USS Lexington (CV-16) museum in Corpus Christi, TX, where they can now be seen on display.
Her sister ship USS Newport News (CA-148) was scrapped in New Orleans in 1993. The third Des Moines-class ship, the USS Salem (CA-139), is a museum ship in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: USS Des Moines (CA-134)