Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WOO HOO!!! GREAT NEWS ABOUT THE ALAMO!

Its official, the Texas Land Office is buying the late 19th Century buildings that lay over the west wall foundation at the Alamo

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...gs-across-from-6552176.php#photo-8744624




What this means is that most of the original footprint can now be uncovered, and a whole new Alamo compound presented to visitors, better honoring ALL the peoples associated with that irreplaceable piece of history.

Can't wait to see what the archaeologists will find when they are given a free hand in the plaza.

This is gonna be great

Birdwatcher

I've never understood WHY the great state of Texas EVER allowed all that crap to be built around the Alamo in the first place.

I guess it was money driven then, as it is now.

Thought the UN was going to take that place over...

The Mexican Army tore down the walls on their way out after San Jacinto, and the Texians didn't want to have to take it again either so they completed the process, especially after the Mexican Army came back and took San Antonio (and the Alamo) again in '42.

Four years after that it looked like this, the earliest known photo...



Pretty much the way the church probably had looked in '36, as it was never finished when it was part of the original mission (the US Army put a roof on it in 1860, and built up the facade into the familiar shape so as to accomodate the roof.

Anything salvageable from the original walls was hauled away and reused, and a major plaza/thoroughfare developed over time across the original mission compound.

But why it weren't preserved earlier?

There was better'n 30,000 Americans (some were Mexican Citizens) in Texas in 1836, very few of these took any part in the fighting. Almost all the fighting was done by Americans who just got here, including the Goliad Massacre victims it might be that more than 1/3 of these died, leaving about 900 surviving participants. Or about 3% of the whole White population of Texas at that time.

By 1860 the population of Texas had grown to 600,000 most of whom were necessarily immigrants who didn't arrive until well after 1836.

The point of all this is that IIRC most of the popular Alamo legends weren't compiled until the 1870's, forty years after the fact. Perhaps it took that long before there were enough Texas-born Texans that the State really had a collective sense of itself.

Even so preservation wasn't really guaranteed until the early 1900's when two members of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Adina de Zavala and Clara Driscoll, pretty much saved it by their own efforts. By that time the surrounding city blocks were pretty well established, the three large buildings presently being purchased by the State were completed in 1888.

Since that time the city has done a number of things to the site, according to the norms of different eras. The big (and inaccurate) monument on the plaza dates from 1936 (IIRC).

For the first time since its saving tho, the State now runs the Alamo, with the funds and clout to get major restoration done.

Birdwatcher

It's good to see things going back the way they should.

I think they thought so too.

And if Obama appointee and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro becomes our next Vice President, they may yet have a say. And with changing demographics who knows how Texas will be politically 20 years down the line.

The point of contention would be UN rules forbidding reconstructing anything unless you know for sure what it looked like. We need to get this thing done while it is yet possible.

Birdwatcher

[lFirst thing that needs to happen is for San Antonio to deep six their bat schidt crazy city archaeologist. The woman Is certifiable. At least the state archaeologist from THC are a bit more professional.

Wonder who will land the contract for excavation.

Three obstacles to be overcome...

1) One is buying out the businesses occupying those buildings, these tenants having long-term leases and already putting out feelers that they ain't gonna come cheap.

2) Gaining use of the multi-story 1920's Federal Building at the north end of the plaza for a museum. Apparently this building sits mostly empty at present but the Feds are resisiting.

3) Ironically enough, the formidable society matrons at the San Antonio Conservation Society. A lot of these ladies are married to big money, prob'ly had estrogen ties to the recently disenfranchised Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) too. I would expect they have longed worked with that city Archaeologist lady too.

THEIR take is that the plaza in its present form also has historical value, and they are opposed to razing any buildings. They were absolutely thrilled to get UN designation too.

https://www.saconservation.org/Advo...tMID/508/Think-you-know-Alamo-Plaza.aspx

These people will not be easily brushed aside.

Birdwatcher

"THEIR take is that the plaza in its present form also has historical value, and they are opposed to razing any buildIng"

A lot in that statement, Birdy! They will not go without a lot of kicking and screaming.

They sure don't mind using executive actions, or eminent domain to get what "they" want, whether it has historical value or not.

This must not fall into their agenda. Or he's still pissed at Texas...

Check with the Castro Clan....... they know already.

Ok! I bet they do!!!!!

Hoo Boy am I out of the loop.

Turns out a $1.5 million conversion is underway to turn the old Joske's section of the adjacent Rivercenter Mall into a major Alamo Museum... whether as an interim measure or a final product I dunno...

(the trees behind the mall in the aerial shot is where the Alamo is...)

http://www.expressnews.com/real-estate/article/Alamo-museum-coming-to-Joske-s-building-6544224.php

...but doubtless to meet the terms of the deal met with singer Phil Collins, Alamo enthusiast nonpareil, who donated his entire Alamo collection to the City of San Antonio with the understanding a museum would be built to house it...

http://www.history.com/news/phil-collins-has-always-remembered-the-alamo

On the ground, none of us regular re-enactors are privy to much of this, nor most of the hired Alamo staff apparently. But the word is over the next three years big changes are afoot

Above all else, what I'm really hoping for is the plaza out in front of the Alamo (the original mission footprint) to be stripped bare of overlaying concrete and asphalt so that a painstaking archeological exploration could be done.

Birdwatcher

That place should be sitting in the middle of a section of land all by itself without being exposed to the fumes of modern society!!

Hello Birdy:

You mentioned this building:
2) Gaining use of the multi-story 1920's Federal Building at the north end of the plaza for a museum. Apparently this building sits mostly empty at present but the Feds are resisting.


I believe this might be the old Post Office. The upper stories were the Federal Court House. I did Traffic Court there when I was an MP at Ft. Sam Houston. (1973 and 74) The Judges rotated the Court duties. On a couple of occasions Maximum John (John H. Wood Jr) sat on the bench hearing traffic complaints.

I assume you know the rest of the story on Maximum John.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Wood,_Jr.


kwg