The building lay discarded for the better part of the century until the Culebra Foundation took it over and, over time, converted it into a museum of island history. The building was inaugurated as a museum in 2008.
So what can you expect to find here? For a small, one-room museum, quite a bit, including:
- A series of black and white photos of the island dating from the 1930s and 1940s.
- Artifacts and remains of the native Taíno tribe that once called Puerto Rico home.
- A beautiful authentic wooden piragua, or canoe (not native to the Taíno Indians but rather built by Amazon Indians and still a pretty nice exhibit.
- Remnants of the presence of the U.S. Navy, including casings, shells, and other evidence of the Navy's use of the island as a testing ground.
- Books, t-shirts, and decorative gourd bowls (a Taíno tradition) for sale.
- A terrific young docent, Quetcy A Padrón Gauthier, who works at the museum on a volunteer basis, knows her history, and is a wonderful cultural ambassador for the island.
- Two beautiful replicas of schooners and ships that once sailed to the island.