Dart was sponsored by Miss Margaret Fechteler, and cost 15,000 dollars to build. She was laid down on 6 April 1899, by the Mare Island Navy Yard, in Vallejo, California. She was launched, and christened, on 28 February 1900, and commissioned on 9 April 1900. She was 71 feet 10 inches (21.89 m) long, and 16 feet 7 inches (5.05 m) wide.^[1]

Dart was attached to the Mare Island Navy Yard on 9 April 1900, where she served until 1930. She was employed as a ferry between the Mare Island Navy Yard and Vallejo, California, and also as a stand-by fire boat. On 20 September 1930 she was transferred to the United States Lighthouse Service, where she was renamed to Locust, and served as a buoy boat for the 18th Lighthouse District at San Francisco from 1931 to 1939, when she was transferred to the US Coast Guard, as the US Lighthouse Service was merging into the USCG. She continued to serve in the 18th Lighthouse district until she was decommissioned in 1954.^[1]

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.