Blue Bird was built as the private motorboat Houqua in 1911 by the Matthews Boat Company at Port Clinton, Ohio, for A. A. Augustus of Lakewood, Ohio. She may have been renamed Parthenia later, and eventually was renamed Blue Bird. On 25 June 1917, the U.S. Navy acquired Blue Bird under a free lease from her owner - by then E. Palmer Gavit of Albany, New York - for use as a section patrol vessel during World War I. She was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard at Brooklyn, New York, as USS Blue Bird (SP-465) on 17 December 1917 with Chief Boatswain’s Mate William R. Wardlaw, USNRF, in command.