The contract to build Trout was awarded to the Electric Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corporation of Groton, Connecticut, on 14 May 1948 and her keel was laid down there on 1 December 1949.

In December 1959, while returning home, she represented the United States at Bergen, Norway, during the 50th anniversary celebrations commemorating the birth of the Royal Norwegian Navy's submarine arm.

After returning from her second Western Pacific deployment to San Diego on 29 January 1976, Trout enjoyed a brief unusual duty — repeatedly diving and surfacing while being filmed to portray the fictitious U.S. Navy nuclear submarine USS Neptune in the opening credits of the 1978 movie Gray Lady Down.

The training program was completed on 19 December 1978, and that day the U.S. Navy simultaneously decommissioned Trout, struck her from the Naval Vessel Register, and transferred her to Iran.

Kousseh was returned to Philadelphia, where she languished for many years while the United States resolved financial matters related to her abortive transfer to Iran.

After completing that service, she was towed to the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility at Philadelphia, where the U.S. Navy held her for donation to a museum, but all preservation efforts failed.