The Buccaneer, a five-masted barkentine painted to look like a pirate ship, was a feature of the riverfront for decades. Built in Texas in 1918 with a wooden hull already considered outmoded, it first sailed the Atlantic as a freighter named The City of Beaumont before becoming a floating nightclub here in the 1930s. It later ended its days as a grounded breakwater with The Lancaster, launched in Maryland in 1892, protecting the cove just south of this park. The steel-hulled Lancaster also served as a platform for shacks used by shad fishermen to smoke and sell their catch.