Assigned to the Submarine Force, Conestoga carried out towing duties along the Atlantic coast, transported supplies and guns, escorted convoys to Bermuda and the Azores, and cruised with the American Patrol Detachment in the vicinity of the Azores.

13, Azores, from which she towed disabled ships and escorted convoys until her arrival at New York on 26 September 1919.

She was then assigned to harbor tug duty in the 5th Naval District at Norfolk, Virginia.

On 25 March of that year, the tug steamed out of Mare Island, with a barge of coal sailing via Pearl Harbor to take up an assignment as station ship at Tutuila, American Samoa.

In October 2015, a joint NOAA and Navy mission confirmed the wreck was the Conestoga and on 23 March 2016, 95 years after the ship was lost, a formal announcement was made.