South Padre Island was already a booming resort community when Hurricane Beulah struck heavily in 1967. Construction slowed only long enough to clear the storm debris. That same year an Indiana salvage firm, Platoro Ltd. Inc., surpassed Padre's most extravagant treasure legends by bringing to light shipwreck treasure valued at $1.2 million. Some artifacts recovered are of such antiquity that they have no counterparts in museums. The State of Texas capped the lid on further exploitation of buried ships off Padre's shore, part of a Spanish treasure fleet wrecked in a 1553 hurricane.

Most local legends of island treasure have been linked with buccaneers. The Spanish Colonial period brought out pirates as well as privateers, since it was known that ships from the New World sailing for Spain had cargoes of great value.

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There are tales of pirate rendezvous behind Padre Island and of treasure buried in its sands by Jean Lafitte. He is said to have obtained water from a well on the mainland and tales of pirate treasure persist today.

A story in a magazine in 1964 led to the discovery of several sunken Spanish galleons some distance from Mansfield Cut offshore from Padre Island or about 35 miles above Brazos Santiago Pass. A Gary, Ind. business man, Paul Znika, scouted the area and found some coins and other relics. He recruited divers for the exploration of sunken ships, forming the organization known as Platoro Ltd. The State of Texas claimed Platoro was illegally operating in Texas waters and the controversy, argued in courts for several years, may not be settled yet. In February 1975 the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a 1973 ruling by Brownsville District Judge Reynaldo Garza which awarded Platoro one-half of the trove, specifying $131,248 in cash or in relics of equivalent value from the State of Texas. The Appeals Court reversed the case with directions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The artifacts are retained by the state. Besides gold bars and silver plates, the disputed treasure includes an astrolabe (a compact instrument for locating celestial bodies replaced today by the sextant), an ancient crossbow, cannons, a tiny gold crucifix valued at $100,000 and other items. Said state archaeologist Curtis Tunnell, "Each artifact is a priceless time capsule. There, in one place, are representative items of one specific time in history. The wrecks off Padre Island are probably the oldest ones found in the Western Hemisphere. Wrecks found in Florida [waters] are about 200 years younger."

Since 1970 the Antiquities Committee has charted the Texas coast and has located sites of other sunken ships. Some of the sites have been examined. Records are kept and recovery of all antiquities processed with the utmost care under supervision of the state archaeologist. A trained marine archaeologist has been engaged. Students from the University of Texas, University of Wisconsin and Western Michigan University assist in the diving work. The Biomedical Branch at Galveston provides dive masters and medical support.

During two summers work 20,000 pounds of additional artifacts were recovered. These are in storage at the University of Texas Balcones Research Center in Austin. Seven huge anchors 12 feet long and weighing over 1,000 pounds were brought up. Tiny objects also were retrieved, the handle of an old chest, tiny brass pins, remnants of cloth, nuts, olive pits, pork bones, glass shards, sounding weights, rope, arquebus bullets, gunpowder, bowls, including a pewter porringer and a bowl used in blood-letting, and a cockroach imbedded in wood.

The chief instrument used in locating wreck debris, the wood portions having long since disappeared, is the magnometer. Distortions in the earth's magnetic field are detected through the iron content in sea floor debris. At the start of the actual salvage operation, a device nicknamed "Baby Huey" by the crew, was sent down to the site where it blew sediments from the artifacts by churning the water. Rods then were hammered into the sea bottom to serve as a subbase point for recording where the artifacts were found. A diver makes his record on a slate of formica. Working in pairs, the divers try to avoid attracting sharks by not wearing yellow or other bright colors. So far sharks have given little trouble.

Artifacts discovered are hand-carried to the surface. Heavy objects are marked by buoys and later hoisted aboard the Longhorn, an 80-foot research boat from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute at Rockport.

Knowing that the archives of Spain held information about the silver fleet that was shipwrecked so long ago, the Texas Antiquities Commission sent translators to Spain in 1974. They were to microfilm all records pertaining to the story of the fleet that left Veracruz in the spring of 1553 and the subsequent disaster. Sister Mary Christine Markovsky, professor of philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake College, San Antonio, was leader of the three-member team. The trio consulted 26 separate archives; 1100 documents were micro-filmed or copied and 800 slides made of old ships,circa 1500. They also brought slides of military uniforms, fire-arms, sea chests and other museum pieces to aid in work of identification. The materials are being studied in a research center in San Antonio where translations are being carried out. Carl Clausen, undersea archaeologist with the Texas Historical Commission, plans to publish a complete report on their findings and the artifacts collected so far. Investigation of other located wreck sites will continue from year to year. This first state-sponsored excavation of ancient shipwreck remains will serve as a model for future salvage efforts and history will be enriched by "finds" interpreted by participating archaeologists and other scientists.