Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

At 100 years old, Battleship TEXAS, moored in a slip at San Jacinto SP & HS in LaPorte, has seen better days.

06— TEXAS, being permanently moored at San Jacinto, we don’t have the capability of taking it to a dry dock.

The ship—now a museum—experienced one dry dock cycle since its 1948 arrival at San Jacinto. Andy Smith, who oversees the care of the ship, says years spent submerged in brackish water, resting atop mud, damaged the craft.

22— They weren’t able to patch all the leaks, and she slowly filled with water. Some of the internal structures are severely deteriorated, and that’s some of the work we’re doing right now: trying to repair those internal structures – but also her exterior. The shell plating – the hull – has so many leaks. And that keeps water coming in; water coming in creates more problems with deterioration on the inside. And it goes on and on.

Despite challenges involved in keeping this antique dreadnought repaired, the benefits of doing so are many.

14—It’s a nice bookend between the monument that commemorates the battle of San Jacinto and the battleship that commemorates both WWI and WWII. You have a broad scope of both world history, US history, and Texas history.

Next month we celebrate the centennial of this venerated vessel with a Texas Uprising.

09—The public family festival that we’re going to have on March 15 is going to be a party the likes of which we probably haven’t seen before.

Proceeds from the event will fund repair work on the Battleship… festival details tomorrow.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 18th, 2014 at 12:00 am and is filed under Events, Historic Sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.