The contract to build Silversides was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut, on 25 June 1968 and her keel was laid down on 13 October 1969.

In the autumn of 1984, Silversides left Norfolk for a scheduled refueling overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, entering drydock there in late November 1984.

In the autumn of 1989, Silversides departed Norfolk and voyaged north into the Arctic, surfaced at the North Pole for the second time, proceeded out of the Arctic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean, participated in United States Pacific Fleet exercises, made port calls in Hawaii and California, and returned to Norfolk via the Panama Canal, becoming only the second submarine to circumnavigate North America.

In Jan 1994, Silversides' home port was changed from Norfolk to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in anticipation of her decommissioning there.

Silversides was decommissioned at Pearl Harbor on 21 July 1994 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day.