The Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel is one of the U.S. Navy's principal experimental hydrodynamic research facilities and is operated by the Penn State Applied Research Laboratory. The facility was completed and entered operation in 1949. The facility is named after Lieutenant W. Garfield Thomas Jr., a Penn State journalism graduate who was killed in World War II. For a long time, the Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel was the largest circulating water tunnel in the world. It has been declared a historic mechanical engineering landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.