[3][4] In October 1905, following shakedown, Maryland joined the Atlantic Fleet for operations along the east coast and in the Caribbean, where she took part in the 1906 winter maneuvers off Cuba.

She then returned to San Francisco and for the next decade she cruised throughout the Pacific, participating in survey missions to Alaska (1912 and 1913); carrying United States Secretary of State Knox to Tokyo for the funeral of Emperor Meiji Tenno (September 1912); steaming off the Central American coast to aid, if necessary, Americans endangered by political turmoil in Mexico and Nicaragua (1913, 1914, and 1916); and making numerous training cruises to Hawaii and the South-Central Pacific.

The practice torpedo, which was fitted with collapsible warhead to avoid damage, actually punctured Maryland's hull 9 feet below the waterline causing enough flooding to take on a 5 degree list.

When the United States Congress declared war on Imperial Germany on 6 April 1917, the armored cruiser, renamed Frederick---in order to free up her original name for use with the Colorado-class battleship Maryland---on 9 November 1916, was en route from Puget Sound to San Francisco.

Operations off the west coast took up the remainder of her active duty career, and on 14 February 1922 she decommissioned and entered the Reserve Fleet at Mare Island.