===== The roots of the Coast Guard lie in the United States Revenue Cutter Service established under the Department of the Treasury in 1790. Until the establishment of the United States Navy a decade later, the Cutter Service was the only naval force of the early U.S. "First Fleet" is a term occasionally used as an informal reference to the US Coast Guard, although as far as one can detect the United States has never in fact officially used this designation with reference either to the Coast Guard or any element of the US Navy. The informal appellation honors the fact that between 1790 and 1798, there was no United States Navy and the cutters which were the predecessor of the US Coast Guard were the only warships protecting the coast, trade, and maritime interests of the new republic. The modern Coast Guard can be said to date to 1915, when the Cutter Service merged with the United States Life-Saving Service and Congress formalized the existence of the new organization. In 1939, the U.S. Lighthouse Service was brought under its purview. In 1942, the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation was transferred to the Coast Guard. In 1967, the Coast Guard moved from the Department of the Treasury to the newly formed Department of Transportation, an arrangement that lasted until it was placed under the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. -see also Wikipedia- History of the United States Coast Guard. Thanks for looking.