You've heard of cars being found at the bottom of rivers during drought? How about ships?
Five World War I era ships were discovered at the bottom of the Neches River in the Big Thicket National Preserve. Susan Kilcrease is the curator of the Ice House museum in Silsbee, a non-profit history museum built into an old ice plant. She says the water was so low that parts of five shipwrecks were spotted in the Neches.
These ships were built for the war in Beaumont. They were 282 feet long and made of wood. As soon as Kilcrease saw photos of the ships she called the Texas Historical Commission, which was aware of their existence.
But their story is fascinating. Kilcrease says during that war there was a steel shortage and German submarines were blowing up merchant ships in the Atlantic. "At first they decided to build 2,500 hundred wooden ships with 1800's technology. They settled on 1,000. They built 100 in Beaumont. The war ended and 589 were complete and nobody knew what to do with them." The ships were abandoned at a great financial loss and parked around in the Neches river near the port. "A lot of them caught on fire, suspiciously, and sank. There are many of them down there. I've heard 25, I've heard 12, I've heard 40."
There isn't much left of these found wrecks. They burned to the water line. These ships were three stories tall. What's left has been there for decades so they're pretty well dug into the water and what's left extends only a few feet above the river bed.
She says what's really interesting is that few people knew. "Just a few, old time fishermen have run into them or seen pieces of them and knew they were there. The average person did not know they were there."
She says since these ships are in a National Preserve, disturbing them in any way is a federal crime. Their location is not being given out. The river is back up and the ships are once again below the water line.
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