MUSEUM & CULTURE
McLarty Treasure Museum
Indian River County · Atlantic Coast
A museum standing on the actual salvage camp of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet, inside Sebastian Inlet State Park.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Eleven ships sailing for Spain went down in a hurricane off this coast in July 1715, carrying silver and gold from the New World. Around fifteen hundred people got ashore alive and made camp on this ground while salvage crews worked the wrecks offshore for the next several years. That camp is what the museum is built on, which is unusual: most treasure museums hold objects from somewhere else, and this one sits on the place the story happened. Inside there are videos explaining the wreck and the salvage, and displays of original material recovered from the site and the sea: gear, weapons, tools and treasure. The ground was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 12, 1970, the same day the state park around it was created. Beachcombers still turn up coins along this shore after a storm moves the sand, which is why it is called the Treasure Coast
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