La Belle Shipwreck Project

FAIN: GI-50351-11

Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum (Austin, TX 78701-1342)
David Denney (Project Director: January 2011 to October 2015)
Margaret Mary Koch (Project Director: October 2015 to March 2016)

Implementation of a long-term installation using the explorer Robert La Salle's ship, La Belle, as the centerpiece for an examination of the history, politics, science, and cultural encounters in the region in the 17th century.

The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum (TSHM) in partnership with the Texas Historic Commission (THC) is implementing the installation of the French ship La Belle (one of the most important shipwrecks ever discovered in North America) into the Museum for long term exhibition and interpretation. The goal of this project is to place the ship's hull into the Museum in an accessible manner that: ensures stewardship; places its preserved cargo in context; and expands our existing scope of interpretation beyond Texas. The project will continue to enhance and expand our collaboration, bringing together a particularly well qualified team of academic historians, archeologists and exhibit development practitioners who will explore not only the significance of the ship and its impact on American history, but will also formulate how these concepts, objects and story will be interpreted to the broadest possible audience.

Associated Products

Becoming Texas (Web Resource)
Title: Becoming Texas
Author: Museum Staff
Abstract: Updated web resources from the Becoming Texas gallery including videos associated with La Belle.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/exhibits/first-floor-galleries
Primary URL Description: Becoming Texas exhibition gallery featuring La Belle
Secondary URL: https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/la-belle/the-exhibit
Secondary URL Description: La Belle web pages with resources

Prizes

President's Award
Date: 5/12/2015
Organization: Texas Association of Museums

Becoming Texas Gallery (Exhibition)
Title: Becoming Texas Gallery
Title: La Belle: The Ship That Changed History
Curator: Frank Cordes
Curator: Kathryn Siefker
Abstract: Covering 16,000 years of human habitation in the land now known as Texas, the major, core exhibition gallery features the ship, La Belle, excavated from Matagorda Bay in the mid 90s by the Texas Historical Commission.
Abstract: La Belle: The Ship That Changed History is a 6,000 square foot special exhibition that examines the more than three hundred years of history of a French ship and its demise off the coast of Texas. Heralded as “one of the most important shipwreck discoveries in North America,” the La Belle was part of a failed 1684 expedition led by French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle to establish a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/la-belle/the-exhibit

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