Shipwreck! — The 1554 Flota Exhibit

Abstract

The Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History opened a brand-new exhibit in the spring of 1990. Entitled Shipwreck!, the exhibit tells the story of the three Spanish ships lost on Padre Island in 1554. The Texas Antiquities Committee (TAC) is the state agency that conducted the archaeological and historical work on the 1554 flota and has reported on it in a series of publications (e.g., Arnold and Weddle, 1976). The artifacts remained in the public domain. Therefore, detailed studies of the collection and new contributions to knowledge of the past continue (e.g., Skowronek, 1987). Public television produced a documentary film, Graveyard of the Gulf, that the TAC continues to circulate on videotape to schools and other interested groups. The public enjoyed a major traveling exhibition in the middle and late 1970s. Several exhibit formats are described in another IJNA article focusing on the Austin Children’s Museum exhibit on the wrecks (Arnold and Alsup, 1992). The present article describes the definitive permanent exhibition on the 1554 wrecks. Heeding the proverb about pictures, here the text is brief, and the plans and photographs carry the load.