La Petite Belle, moored in
Palacios, provides a three-dimensional, seaworthy model of La Salle s ship that was found on the bottom of
Matagorda Bay.
The beauty of the 17th-century French ship was lost in the muddy floor of the bay halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi. The half-scale model in Palacios recreates the flourishes on the bow and the vibrant colors of her hull.
Ren
é
-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, left France in 1684 with four ships looking for the mouth of the Mississippi River, but landed on the Texas coast. The smallest of the ships,
La Belle ran aground and sank in a storm.