text: Starting on April 2, 1906, she became a training ship for midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy. In this role, she conducted three summer training cruises: May 15 to August 26, 1907, June 1 to September 1, 1908, and May 14 to August 28, 1909. Between the cruises, the ship was placed in reserve, first in Norfolk, Virginia and later at Annapolis, Maryland. On March 6, 1912, Olympia arrived in Charleston, South Carolina. There she served as a barracks ship until 1916. In late 1916, the ship was recommissioned into the fleet, when it became increasingly clear that the U.S. would eventually enter World War I.
  World War I
  After the U.S. entered the First World War by declaring war on Germany in April 1917, Olympia was mobilized as the flagship of the U.S. Patrol Force. She was assigned to patrol the eastern seaboard of the U.S. for German warships. She also escorted transport ships in the North Atlantic. On June 15, 1917, she ran aground in Long Island Sound, and she put in for repairs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, along with the replacement of her eight-inch and 5"/40-caliber guns with 5"/51-caliber guns, which took eight months, but a July, 1917 article about
  hitting the rocks says her original armament of four eight-inch and ten five-inch guns had been replaced by twelve five-inch guns "a few years ago." Olympia departed Charleston on April 28, 1918 carrying an expeditionary force bound for Russia. Russia, which had previously been a member of the Allied Powers, was in the midst of civil war and had signed a separate peace with Germany. On June 9, 1918, the ship arrived in Murmansk, Russia, and deployed the peacekeeping force. She subsequently assisted in the occupation of Archangel against Bolshevik forces.