Lectures

Houston was founded along Buffalo Bayou, where cotton traders believed they could establish a port to move cotton in and out of Texas faster and more efficiently.

Lecture topic TBD. Additional details will be available soon.

TopGun Navy Training Program

Learn about Darwin’s experiences on the Beagle as he traveled around the world and conducted his legendary research on the finches of the Galapagos.

Camp Logan: A World War I Training Camp in Houston. Saboteurs, Strikes, and Surveillance: Texas Shipbuilding during the Great War. WWI Shipwreck Archaeology: Abandonment of the U.S. Shipping Board Vessels in East Texas.

Born in the late 1700s, Jean Lafitte created a profitable smuggling operation in the Gulf of Mexico with his brother, Pierre. The pair then moved to Galveston Island where they developed the colony of Campeche. For such an enigmatic character, much is still unknown, or misinterpreted, about his life.

Tanker surfing has been practiced in Texas for the last 50 years. In the 60’s and 70’s, the sport occurred not in open waters like today, but along the shorelines of two islands in Galveston Bay: Redfish Island and Atkinson Island. During this time, ships were less frequent and much smaller, but they still created waves.

Doris Miller, the son of an impoverished sharecropper, was born in McLennan County, Texas. During the Depression, he took the only job that he could find: the Navy. There, in common with all black recruits, he was assigned to the messman branch, making the beds, shining the shoes, and serving the meals of white officers.