McLarty Treasure Museum in Sebastian, Florida

The McLarty Treasure Museum is a small Florida State Parks museum at the south end of Sebastian Inlet State Park that tells the story of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet from the beach where its survivors camped.

Florida State Parks places the McLarty Treasure Museum at the south boundary of Sebastian Inlet State Park, on the Indian River County side of the inlet. The museum is situated on a survivors camp of the wrecked 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet, and its exhibits are built around that site rather than around treasure brought in from elsewhere (Florida State Parks). The park is one of two that frame Sebastian's stretch of barrier island: it spans 1,000 acres over three miles of shoreline on both sides of Sebastian Inlet, and it runs two museums, the McLarty Treasure Museum and the Sebastian Fishing Museum (Sebastian Inlet State Park history).

The name comes from a donor. WQCS, the public radio station of Indian River State College, reported in 2015 that the museum is named for Robert McLarty, who donated the property to the state, and that the 1715 wreck is why Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties are called the Treasure Coast (WQCS, July 20, 2015).

The McLarty Treasure Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and charges $2 a person on top of the Sebastian Inlet State Park entrance fee.

Florida State Parks lists the same schedule on both its amenities page and its hours page. Park admission is $8 per vehicle for two to eight people, $4 for a single-occupant vehicle, and $2 for pedestrians and bicyclists (Florida State Parks hours and fees). The museum has its own restrooms (Florida State Parks amenities). The park itself is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so the museum's hours, not the gate, set the visiting window (Sebastian Inlet State Park).

Getting there has been slower in 2026. Florida State Parks posted that, effective May 2026, construction was scheduled to begin on the Sebastian Inlet bridge along the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway, warning of traffic congestion and noting that access to the beach from the south side is unavailable during the construction. The park phone for questions is 772-589-9659. Last verified: October 11, 2026, on the Florida State Parks website.

The ground under the McLarty Treasure Museum is where about 1,500 survivors of the 1715 fleet camped after a hurricane wrecked their ships off the barrier island south of Sebastian Inlet.

Florida's Division of Historical Resources set a marker at the site in 1974. Its account dates the storm to late July 1715 and says a hurricane destroyed a fleet of eleven or possibly twelve homeward bound merchant ships, all bound for Spain with colonial gold and silver coin. Roughly 1500 survivors, men, women and children, came ashore on the barrier island south of Sebastian Inlet and camped close to where the flagship went down. Help came from the north: the governor general at St. Augustine, Corcoles, dispatched a relief party made up mostly of Indian auxiliaries (Florida Division of Historical Resources marker).

Salvage crews then used the Sebastian Inlet camp as their base, and excavation there turned up signs of temporary storehouses for recovered gold and silver. The English pirate Henry Jennings raided the Sebastian Inlet camp during the salvage, ran off the guards and took a large haul of coins to Port Royal, Jamaica; Spanish salvagers still got most of the treasure back to Havana. Accounts differ on the exact day of the storm: the WQCS essay gives July 30, 1715, while Sebastian Daily gives July 31 and describes the fleet as 11 ships, 10 Spanish and one French, that had left Havana on July 24 (Sebastian Daily, September 30, 2025).

The McLarty Treasure Museum stands on a National Register site: the Spanish Fleet Survivors and Salvors Camp Site in Indian River County, listed with a 1970 record for its links to the 1715 fleet.

The National Park Service record for the Spanish Fleet Survivors and Salvors Camp Site carries National Register Information System ID 70000186 and a publication date of 8/12/1970. It lists 1715 as the significant year, event and information potential as the criteria, and commerce, military and transportation history among the areas of significance. The address is restricted, as is common for archaeological sites, and the nearest city given is Sebastian (National Park Service, NPGallery).

Information potential is the point. A site listed under that criterion is valued for what it can still reveal through archaeology, which matches the marker's account of storehouse remains found by excavation. Stuart Magazine notes that the McLarty Treasure Museum occupies part of the survivors' site and shares its story through artifacts, exhibits and a documentary (Stuart Magazine). The museum sits on Orchid Island, the barrier island east of Sebastian and Wabasso across the Indian River Lagoon.

Inside, the McLarty Treasure Museum shows artifacts and displays from the 1715 fleet and runs a television documentary; outside, an observation deck looks over the Atlantic beach where the survivors came ashore near Sebastian Inlet.

Florida State Parks describes the museum as featuring artifacts, displays and an observation deck that overlooks the ocean. The film is an Arts and Entertainment television production, The Queen's Jewels and the 1715 Fleet, which tells how the fleet was returning to Spain when the hurricane struck; the final showing of the day starts at 3:15 p.m. at the McLarty museum (Florida State Parks amenities).

The water off the museum is part of the draw. The same Florida State Parks page notes that juvenile green sea turtles feed on the reefs off the McLarty Treasure Museum, and that loggerheads nest on Sebastian Inlet State Park beaches in summer. WQCS observed in 2015 that visitors may see modern salvagers with metal detectors working the beach below the deck, a reminder that the 1715 wrecks are still being worked off the Indian River County shore.

Yes: salvagers working under federal court rights and state oversight still recover 1715 fleet coins off the Treasure Coast, including more than 1,000 silver coins and five gold coins reported near Sebastian in 2025.

Sebastian Daily reported on September 30, 2025 that crews recovered more than 1,000 silver coins and five gold coins during the summer salvage season. The rights holder, 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels, LLC, holds exclusive rights to the site granted by U.S. District Courts; the company keeps 80% of recovered items, with 20% going to the State of Florida, and it plans exhibitions at local museums after conservation (Sebastian Daily).

State law explains the state's share. Section 267.061 of the Florida Statutes declares that treasure trove and artifacts abandoned on state-owned lands or state-owned sovereignty submerged lands belong to the state, with title vested in the Division of Historical Resources (Florida Statutes, section 267.061). That is why the 1715 story near Sebastian Inlet is told by a state museum, why finds from the wreck sites pass through state review, and why the camp site beneath the McLarty Treasure Museum stays protected ground.