Museum
Bullock Texas State History Museum
Three-floor state history museum built around a rescued seventeenth-century French shipwreck.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin traces the story of La Belle, a French shipwreck that sank in Matagorda Bay in sixteen eighty-six and lay buried in mud for three centuries before Texas Historical Commission surveyors located it in nineteen ninety-five. It follows the unusual engineering problem archaeologists faced in recovering a fragile wooden hull from underwater, and the lone sailor whose skeleton was still aboard. You'll also hear about the trade goods and weapons that traveled with him, bound for a colony that never got built.
This audio guide was created using AI.