The contract to build Sargo was awarded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, on 29 September 1955 and her keel was laid down on 21 February 1956.

Later the same day, the Hawaiian flag was raised at the pole, and, on the morning of 10 February, Sargo submerged and set a course for the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and a rendezvous with ice island T-3.

On 14 June, the submarine was docked in Pearl Harbor, preparing to take Bhumibol Adulyadej and his wife Mom Rajawongse Sirikit Kitiyakara, the King and Queen of Thailand on a cruise the next day.

Two Mark 37 torpedo warheads detonated "low-order", and the fire spread dramatically, killing the crewman tending the oxygen line, machinist's mate third class James E. Smallwood.

When the combined forces of the shipyard and the boat's crew were unable to control the fire, Sargo's officers took the submarine a short distance from the dock and dove with the stern room hatch open.

On 15 April 1987, Submarine Base Pearl Harbor opened a new 17-story Bachelor Enlisted Quarters, which was dedicated on 26 February 1988 in the memory of Smallwood and the sacrifice of his life while performing in the service of his country.

In the western Pacific into May, she participated in exercises to enhance the antisubmarine warfare readiness of hunter-killer groups and visited Sydney, for the 19th Annual Coral Sea Celebration.

During the late winter and early spring of 1962, Sargo made another extended cruise in the western Pacific, again earning a Navy Unit Commendation for her effort.

Five months later, she again moved westward across the Pacific; and, in February 1966, she returned to Hawaii to enter the naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor where she remained for the next two years, undergoing overhaul and refueling.

Since that time, into 1974, she has maintained a schedule of eastern and western Pacific cruises and training operations, including joint British, Australian, and American exercises in the South China Sea in January 1969.