Remains Of Sunken Ship Exposed Due To Texas Drought

You might recall reading about the extreme drought that essentially dried up Lake Mead that straddles the border of Nevada and Arizona.

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As the waters continued to recede, more and more amazing discoveries were reported. Among those discoveries were a number of bodies. Some had been missing for as many as forty years.

Such a phenomenon is now occurring in the state of Texas. With record high temperatures and a total lack of rainfall, the levels of Texas rivers and lakes continue to fall, and now, things thought to have been gone forever, are beginning to show again.

We've experienced this before with the falling level of Red River, when an ancient Native American canoe was discovered in Caddo Parish back in 2017.

Maybe you remember the drought of 2006 that revealed thousands of Native American artifacts on the bed of Toledo Bend?

Now, thanks to low-water levels, history is once again exposing itself to modern day onlookers.

KVUE website reports:

The severe drought across Texas led to an unusual discovery in the Neches River just north of Beaumont earlier this month. The wreckage of a large sunken wooden boat, perhaps several boats, was found just inches below the surface of the waters of the river.

Bill Milner was on a Jet Ski when he came across the wooden frame and other pieces of what had been a large boat. At the time, it was believed it could have been from an old barge or river boat.

And 12NewsNow says in their YouTube video that this discovery has gone viral.

The Texas Historical Commission posted some amazing sonar images on their Facebook page as they explain the origin of this ship and a number of others just like it that are currently resting on the bottom of the Neches River.

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. Altogether nearly 40 wooden-hulled vessels, formerly operated by the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), are in east Texas rivers, comprising one of the largest collections of WWI vessel abandonment sites in the United States.

The large wooden hulls, designed as steamships, were of the Ferris type and nearly 282 ft. long when constructed. The unutilized vessels were eventually abandoned in the Neches River and in Sabine River near Orange in the 1920s.