The Texas Historical Commission responds to a local shipwreck graveyard find on the bottom of the Neches River amid extreme drought conditions along the Texas and Louisiana border.
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Beaumont Express
Robin Bradshaw
The Texas Historical Commission responded this week after a shipwreck graveyard site was found in the Neches River amid low water levels and extreme drought conditions along the Texas and Louisiana border.
Kilcrease told local reporters she was unaware of the shipwreck and contacted the Texas Historical Commission to help find more answers.
Amy Borgens, the Maritime Archaeologist with the Texas Historical Commission, took the call and responded with a recent press release on Thursday, Aug. 24. to shed some light on the recent shipyard find.
"The wreck, sometimes visible to boaters and others using the river, is one of more than a dozen vessels that had been abandoned after World War I,"
the Texas Historical Commission release said. Two of the wrecks were discovered, but not identified, in 1980 during a cultural resources management survey. In 2004, eight wrecks were reported to the THC but only six were discovered two years later during a cultural resources management survey in 2006.
A decade later in 2019, an archeology program with the THC conducted an acoustic remote sensing survey of a 5-mile section of the Neches River, the release said. During the survey, THC documented over two dozen shipwrecks, including the EFC ships and other vessels.
"Altogether nearly 40 wooden-hulled EFC vessels are in east Texas rivers, comprising one of the largest collections of WWI vessel abandonment sites in the U.S."
Here's the initial Ice House Museum in Silsbee Facebook post when Bill Milner brought in the photos of his findings last week while on the river.