The Time Capsule: Texas shipwrecks lead to treasure hunts

 Any interest in lost treasure?    

On a Texas beach where we spend our winters is a statue of Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle, who landed a ship at that approximate location in 1684.  Another ship of his fleet sank a few miles away.  

LaSalle had previously explored the Great Lakes area and canoed down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Later came the mission that landed him in Texas. His navigation was not the best, as the intent was to reach the Mississippi by sea. Location wasn’t his only problem. LaSalle took his crew ashore and, not realizing the Mississippi was a couple of hundred miles away, decided to walk. Some of his men, after months of frustration, revolted.  LaSalle was shot to death, but the survivors fared no better without him. They met their end in various ways, including a distasteful fate at the hands of cannibalistic Karankawa Indians.  

As decades passed other ships floundered near where LaSalle’s had anchored. The bay was navigable, however, was explored time and again, and became a thriving seaport during the Civil War. A hurricane struck in the 1870s, the place rebuilt, and then another hurricane wiped it out a second time. Indianola became, and remains, a ghost town.  

Folklore has a plethora of French and Spanish ships, dating back more than 300 years, lost in and near Matagorda Bay.  Hurricanes moved the coast in a few hundred feet, leaving the courthouse, bank building, and most of the town below water. Stone foundations, on a clear day, can still be seen.  Valuables galore, including a safe containing a fortune in gold coins, are said to be buried in the silt just a few yards offshore.  

People walk the beach, some swinging metal detectors, and occasionally find relics worth keeping. Mostly, though, their luck is like mine—shells and coral and pop-tops.  

Several months ago the beach travelers I accompany began to see two strangers, waist deep and wearing chest waders, and initially no one was sure what they were doing. They returned day after day, spending hours in a small area, then would be gone for days or weeks. Always, though, they came back.  They had no fishing rods, did whatever they were doing with their hands under water, and they seemed to move in small but growing circles. When someone came near the two stopped and looked out to sea, ignoring even friendly greetings.  

A member of our gang began carrying binoculars. One day we went early and were there, watching from a distance as the two entered the water. They carried submersible metal detectors. On a belt loop was a long dipper with a cup made of hardware cloth, allowing them to scoop and strain.

There came a day when one of our group, at a nearby convenience store, recognized the two men filling their SUV. He initiated a conversation, and found them quite cordial.  Both are from Houston. They work on an offshore oil rig, being out for a week or two at a time, then getting several consecutive days off. Much of their spare time is spent treasure hunting.  

The big question did not get much of an answer. They were having fun, enjoyed the search, but would acknowledge only that they’d found a “few things of interest.”    

Over the course of a winter they worked their way over perhaps 200 yards of coastline.  They have a mile or so to the LaSalle statue, and miles of promising beach beyond that.  I wish them well, and would like to know what’s in their pockets when they leave.  

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.