French Colonial Ship Being Reassembled After 300 Years

AUSTIN, Texas — A frigate carrying French colonists to the New World that sank in a storm off the Texas coast more than 300 years ago is being reassembled into a display that archeologists hope will let people walk over the hull and feel like they are on the ship’s deck. The 1686 wreck of the 54-foot oak frigate La Belle – in an expedition led by famed Mississippi River explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle – is blamed for dooming France’s further exploration of what would become Texas and the American Southwest. But La Salle’s short-lived Fort St.