Gulf Coast piracy and smuggling museum

[Story]

Treasure on the island: Pirate and Smuggling Museum opens

By Mike Baird Caller Times

July 9, 2006

http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/arti...4832466,00.html

Tales of smuggler and pirate peril and their booty have fascinated generations, but the real stuff now is stowed on Padre Island.

"Me father was a smuggler of gold wedding rings and bicycle tires," said John Dowling, 62-year-old curator of the new Pirate and Smuggling Museum.

"Couldn't get wedding rings in France at the end of WWII," the England native said. "And bicycle tires were in such demand in England after the war that me dad would strap one on each shoulder under his Royal Navy uniform and slip them under the noses of customs officials. He did it for beer money."

The booty

What: About 300 pirate artifacts, smuggled objects and mannequin displays

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Where: 14330-B S. Padre Island Dr.

Cost: Adults $5; senior citizens $4; children (7-16) $2; children younger than 7 free

Source: Pirate and Smuggling Museum

His magician father, Ron Francis William Dowling, founded the museum 32 years ago on the Isle of Wight in England. But after his death in 2003 and learning legends of French pirate Jean Lafitte and his scalawags invading Corpus Christi Bay in 1821 to stash gold along the Gulf Coast, it seemed Padre Island was a good site for the museum, Dowling said.

About a dozen life-sized rogues and rascals, including a likeness of Lafitte, show the bitter side of life on the scurry.

One mannequin pirate dangles from a noose, the fate of most if caught, and another is getting a left hand lopped off - common practice for high seas' thieves before they were shipped to an American penal colony in Georgia prior to the end of the Revolutionary War.

Also featured is the Queen of the South China Seas, Cheng I Sao, a famous female pirate who commanded more than 70,000 men aboard about 400 oceangoing Chinese junks.

Silver-inlaid swords from the early 1800s, grappling hooks used to shore up a treasure ship for boarding, and flintlock pistols with gunpowder flasks are displayed alongside cannonballs and chunks of tobacco smuggled in lumps of clay to look like potatoes.

The museum itself is becoming less of a hidden treasure. Margaret Dowling, 55, said most "tykes have a jolly," noting a very strong turnout Friday.

Visitors can read British officer manuals, 250-year-old newspapers with references to captured smugglers and pirates, and a 400-year-old Queen's deed sealed with wax allegedly smuggled from Poland.

Contact Mike Baird at 886-3774

[MorganTyre]

Fascinating place. My wife and I (and our two children) were their very first customers. At the time we were there the focus was primarily on the smuggling end with an even mix of modern to probably early 19th century artifacts. The museum from what I understand was established in England and then moved to the South Texas coast when the owners came here so nearly all of the exhibits have a british bend to them which on one side was neat to see but on the other was slightly disappointing as this area has a rich smuggling and piracy history (to the point where one region - Flour Bluff - took its name from the actions of smugglers) and it would have been very cool to see more local history. Still, it's a neat place and I wish them the best of luck.