Time to remember — and support — the Alamo Plan
There are few more compelling stories about Texas than the Alamo. Spanish explorers first encountered the Payaya Indians there in 1691 and gave San Antonio its name. One of the first European settlements in Texas, the Misión San Antonio de Valero was built by Spaniards and the Payaya in 1718. Eventually becoming the Alamo, it is best known as the Cradle of Texas Liberty in honor of the brave defenders who gave their lives on March 6, 1836. Their sacrifice became the battle-cry “Remember the Alamo” that helped win freedom for Texans.
After the battle, the Alamo avoided demolition thanks to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and became the most prominent landmark in Texas, recognized around the world. There have been numerous efforts over the past century to improve it, to help the Alamo tell its story to visitors from all over the world, almost all ending in division and frustration.
Today, Alamo visitors are disappointed at the site of tourist traps and a carnivallike atmosphere across the street from our most sacred state shrine. There is no visitor center to explain the rich history of the Alamo church or the plaza on its doorstep. Most visitors are on their own to understand the meaning and significance of our history. It is not an experience they will remember.
The lack of reverence and inability to explain one of the most important events in history does no honor to Texas or the Alamo.
We can bring back honor and reverence with the Alamo Plan. Over the past five years, the leaders of the city of San Antonio, the state of Texas and community leaders have worked together to accomplish what others have failed. They have assembled the Alamo Plan to rescue the Alamo Church with loving conservation to restore the original battlefield and give the Alamo what it richly deserves: reverence, honor and the ability to tell its amazing story of sacrifice and heroism.
The plan will preserve, conserve and make crucial repairs to the deteriorating Alamo Church and other historic structures. It will create a world-class visitor center and museum, including Alamo Plaza as an open museum, to tell its complete history. It will help revitalize the Texas and San Antonio tourism economy. What’s more, recent polling shows Texans support the Alamo Plan by a margin 50 points (68 to 18 percent).
However, there are those who oppose parts of the plan. Some don’t want to move the art deco Alamo Cenotaph, a 1930s memorial to the defenders who died on March 6, a few hundred feet to a place of honor and contemplation near the south gate and where one of the first Alamo defenders was killed as the beginning of the dawn assault on March 6, 1836. Like the Alamo Church and the Long Barrack, the cenotaph is falling apart. These conditions require the cenotaph to be disassembled and carefully repaired. It requires an entirely new frame of durable materials to replace the currently corroding one.
Demolition of the existing frame could damage the Long Barrack — one of the first buildings in Texas — ruling out the option of repairing it in place.
No one says they oppose giving the Alamo what it deserves, but that would be the unintended result if we are unable to move forward. I believe that all Texans, critics and supporters alike, have voiced their opinions because of their love for the Alamo and what it represents. We are at a critical juncture where the project could be unintentionally derailed for generations.
San Antonio and the state of Texas have collaborated on many elements — that’s the Texas way — but the demands being made today would destroy those efforts. They would cause yet another effort to save the Alamo to fail. They would unintentionally maintain the lack of reverence and inability to explain one of the most important events in history.
All Texans can help make the Alamo Plan a success by joining with us to support making the Alamo as great as it can be. Write a letter to our Texas officials to show your support for the Alamo Plan.