People who value historic shipwrecks have often wanted to raise them for preservation and display in museums. Charlie Beeker has a better idea: bring the museum to the wreck.
Beeker, director of Indiana University’s Office of Underwater Science in Bloomington, started diving in 1963, a time when historic shipwrecks had no value beyond exploration and salvage. The dive magazines of that time, replete with tales of treasure hunting, glamorized the looting of shipwrecks. When Beeker took a diving instructor course in Key Largo, Fla., in the 1970s, divers had damaged most of the Florida Keys’ historic wrecks. Artifacts such as cannons and anchors became ornaments at marinas, hotels and restaurants along U.S. Highway 1.
Preservationists called for changes and began to float the concept of underwater museums as a way to protect wrecks and keep artifacts in place, but the idea didn’t gain real traction until the passage of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act in 1988. Beeker was on the committee that helped draft the legislation, which acknowledged the value of historic wrecks and clarified the ownership and management of them on federal, state and tribal submerged lands.
The following year, Beeker helped establish the San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve in Florida, and he went on to play a role in creating 11 more underwater parks in Florida and California. By 2009, a national system of marine protected areas was established under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to preserve the shipwrecks, elevating them from plunder to historical treasures.
