WWI-era shipwrecks resurface amid drought
Susan Kilcrease was worried a piece of U.S. history would be altered or damaged after it surfaced on the Neches River last week.
Parts of several shipwrecks recently surfaced on the southeast Texas river due to lower water levels caused by the regionwide drought. Bill Milner, who told local news he grew up on the Neches River, photographed the discovery of the shipwrecks Aug. 18 and immediately brought them to the Ice House Museum in Silsbee.
Kilcrease, the museum’s curator, said interest in the shipwrecks exploded online after the museum posted the images on social media. News outlets from across the country reported the discovery, and although they are working with the Texas Historical Commission to continue researching the shipwrecks, Kilcrease said she was worried the exact location of the shipwrecks would get out.
“As long as they were out of water, anybody could see it,” Kilcrease said. “We were scared to death they were going to be destroyed or looted. People were making comments about how parts of it would make a great fireplace mantel.”
According to the commission, the shipwrecks at the bottom of the Neches River are some of more than a dozen abandoned vessels formerly operated by the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation during World War I. The Neches River comprises one of the largest collections of World War I vessel abandonment sites in the United States, according to the commission, and the location of the shipwrecks has been known by the agency since surveys in the 2000s.
The commission last week confirmed the shipwrecks were part of more than a dozen World War I vessels built in Beaumont and abandoned in the vicinity at the conclusion of the war. Some of the vessels were unfinished and converted to barges or sold for scrap material.
According to the agency, the “large wooden hulls, designed as steamships ... and nearly 282 ft. long when constructed. The unutilized vessels were eventually abandoned in the Neches River and in the Sabine River near Orange in the 1920s.
Orange and Beaumont, along with Houston and Rockport, were the shipbuilding centers in Texas for EFC vessels built under government contracts.”
Many wrecks and other unknown underwater wreckage are protected under state and federal laws, the commission and the museum stressed to people on social media. The wreckage could also be dangerous for visitors who lack the proper equipment and training to research them.
According to a post on the museum’s social media page, Congress had a “blank check” mentality during World War I and set aside $50 million to build 2,500 ships to deliver materials to Europe. But after the war ended, only 589 ships were built, or partially built (the majority of them being built in Beaumont due to its access to lumber).
“I’m sure they were pretty for a while sitting there in The Port of Beaumont, illustrating the strength of America and her people. After the ships had been sitting in the water for a couple of years, they seemed to remind everyone of wasted taxpayer money, plus they were really in the way,” the social media post read.
According to the museum, the city of Beaumont decided to spread the leftover ships across the Neches River north of the city. Several of them caught on fire in 1924. The other ships sunk to the river bottom.
The Neches River’s water level has risen since the museum posts about the shipwrecks went viral, Kilcrease said, easing some of her worries. Now the museum can focus on learning more information about the shipwrecks, getting visitors to the museum and working with Amy Brogens, the maritime archaeologist with the commission to give lectures on the ships in the near future.