(Lecture: February 10, 2025) As part of the Museum’s 2025 Winter Lecture Series, Amy Borgens spoke about the history and salvage of local wrecks, including the historic Mary, the Baddacock and the Reindeer. She also shared new information she recently uncovered about these wrecks.
About Amy Borgens
Amy Borgens was appointed State Marine Archeologist at the Texas Historical Commission in June 2010. As the State Marine Archeologist, Borgens is responsible for the preservation, protection and investigation of shipwrecks and other submerged sites in all state-owned waters.
Borgens earned a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Purdue University and received her master’s degree from the Nautical Archaeology Program, Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University (TAMU). She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at Texas State University.
Prior to her employment at the THC, Borgens worked in cultural resource management and at the Conservation Research Laboratory at TAMU. She has worked in the field of Texas maritime archeology since 1997 and has been associated with several notable Texas shipwreck projects, including La Belle (1686) and USS Westfield (1863). In addition, she assisted in the excavation of Oklahoma’s only shipwreck archeological site, Heroine (1838), and the investigations of early 19th-century shipwrecks at depths exceeding 4,000 feet off the coast of Louisiana (the Mardi Gras and Monterrey Shipwreck Projects). Collectively, she has worked on sites dating from the Byzantine Period to the mid-20th century in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Canada, Turkey, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Falkland Islands. Her experience in the field of archeology includes shipwreck surveys, wreck excavation and documentation, conservation, artifact photography and illustration.
