La Tortuga: The Last Texas Built Laguna Madre Scow Sloop

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since first appearing on sixteenth century Spanish exploration maps, Texas’s 5,405.8 km coastline was famous for difficult navigation. The coast’s low-lying, monotonous nature, shallow lagoons, changing river mouths, and shifting sandbars made it treacherous, especially for deep drafted vessels. Spain’s focus on internal infrastructure and mercantilism meant that by the time Texas was annexed as a state the coast remained undeveloped. By the nineteenth century, the people of Texas adapted to this challenging littoral zone by constructing two types of working vessels well-suited to the environment: the Laguna Madre Scow Sloop and the Gulf Scow Schooner. While Gulf Scow Schooners were abundant west of New Orleans and throughout the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, Laguna Madre Scow Sloops were unique to the southern Texas coast. We focus on the last remaining Laguna Madre Scow Sloop (La Tortuga) and its construction process to give insight into the assembly of one of the most prolific nineteenth to mid-twentieth century south Texas fishing vessels. This construction process was replicated utilizing historical images, conversations with individuals associated with vessels maintenance, and several physical investigations of the vessel and resulted updated ship construction plans.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40273.0