SAN PEDRO (shipwreck) National Register of Historic Places Listing

On July 13, 1733, a ferocious hurricane caught the Spanish treasure fleet in the Florida Straits. The wind roared. It drove the 287-ton San Pedro straight onto the shallow reefs of Hawk Channel, just over a mile off Indian Key. Water rushed in. The crew survived, but the ship was a total loss. Soon after, Spanish salvagers stripped the vessel, recovering thousands of silver coins and leaving a bare skeleton of timber and ballast stones. Then, in the 1960s, modern treasure hunters blasted the site to find whatever the Spanish missed. They took everything.

But the site's real value isn't gold. In 1989, Florida designated the San Pedro as its second state underwater preserve. They wanted to stop the looting. To make it look authentic again, divers placed seven replica cement cannons and a period-accurate anchor on the ocean floor to frame the remaining 90-foot ballast pile. It worked. Today, the wreck serves as a model for low-impact heritage tourism. Listing 01000530 on the National Register in 2001 finally codified this protection. Actually, the listing proved that even a heavily blasted ballast pile retains immense historical value when treated with respect. It is history you can touch.