State denies request to move Cenotaph
Panel members say monument from ’30s has its own place in history
The Texas Historical Commission on Tuesday denied San Antonio’s request to relocate the Alamo Cenotaph, a key element in an ambitious makeover of the fabled battle site.
At the end of a nearly 10-hour virtual meeting Tuesday, the commission voted 12-2 against the city’s request for a permit to repair and move the monument.
The 56-foot-high Cenotaph, created by sculptor Pompeo Coppini, features carved statues of Alamo defenders and symbolic imagery in a work titled “The Spirit of Sacrifice.”
It now stands near the north end of Alamo Plaza. The plan for the Alamo makeover calls for moving the monument a few hundred feet south to a site near the Menger Hotel.
The public-private project, overseen by the city, the Texas General Land Office and the nonprofit Alamo Trust, also envisions closing the plaza to traffic, expanding pedestrian space and turning part of the plaza into an outdoor interpretive space to complement a new Alamo museum.
The project’s leaders had said relocation of the Cenotaph was critical to the larger overhaul. Lori Houston, assistant city manager, called the commission’s vote “disappointing” and said it meant “the Alamo Master Plan remains a plan without a project.”
But commission members said they believed the 1930s monument was historic in its own right and deserving of protection. Several commissioners also said there wasn’t evidence that the interior of the structure was so deteriorated that it needed to be fully disassembled, relocated and rebuilt in a new location, as the project’s leaders have proposed. Commission Chairman John Nau, who voted against relocation, said the Cenotaph needs to be “where those men fought and died.”
He rejected assertions by project leaders that the commission vote effectively kills plans for the makeover and development of a museum.
“Now, the Alamo plan is far too important to this commission, to our state and the city of San Antonio to suggest that the entire project depends on granting a single permit request,” said Nau, a Houston businessman.
The commission staff had given the panel three options: grant a relocation permit, deny a permit or allow the Cenotaph to be repaired in place. The city requested that the commission withdraw that third option.
Nau said the memorial honoring Texian and Tejano Alamo defenders who died in the 1836 battle will need to be restored.
“It clearly needs to be fixed, repaired. I don’t think there’s any question about that,” he said.
“This commission should re
main committed and enthusiastic about working alongside the Alamo Trust to create a visitor experience worthy of our state’s most symbolic and indeed revered landmark. There is no question that the end result is worth this pain. The end result should be the Cenotaph located where the blood flowed,” Nau said.
In presentations to the commission, City Councilman Roberto Treviño, Assistant City Manager Houston and U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a member of the Alamo Trust Board, said the best solution was a full reconstruction of the monument.
Engineers have said the Cenotaph is at risk of cracking and breaking apart because rainwater has corroded the aluminum anchor rods and possibly the steel reinforcement in its concrete frame. They have said it may need to be fully reassembled.
But repairing it in place would be problematic, Treviño, Houston and Hurd said. The Cenotaph has a 20-foot-deep, belowground foundation that would have to be jack-hammered and replaced; the resulting vibrations could harm the mission-era west wall of the Long Barrack, the Alamo’s oldest structure, dating to the 1720s.
Commissioner Wallace Jefferson, who is from San Antonio and was the first African American justice and chief justice on the Texas Supreme Court, said he was persuaded that relocation was in the best interest of the state.
“The evidence that I’ve seen shows me that the Cenotaph needs to be repaired and restored. And I’m convinced by the data that cannot be done properly at its current location,” Jefferson said.
But Commissioner Lilia Marisa Garcia said that despite her support for making the mission-battlefield site “the biggest and the best,” she is a “firm believer that history doesn’t happen in a vacuum.”
“And I am very concerned about the precedent that we are setting because something doesn’t fit into the plan. And that’s where I have very big issues with this,” said Garcia, a history professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “Well, that statue in itself, that Cenotaph, also has history.”
Commissioner Laurie Limbacher, an Austin architect, said she was “very troubled by the idea of relocating it to sort of reinvent the history associated with the placement of the Cenotaph” as part of the 1936 Texas centennial.
“Consistent with expressions in that time period, we have these big, heroic, romantic structures that were placed all across the state of Texas,” Limbacher said. Though the placement might not be what experts would recommend today, “it is entirely consistent with the way things were done in the 1930s.”
In its online page for people to register to speak, the commission allowed another option: to simply indicate whether they supported relocation. Some 1,624 people indicated they supported the idea, and 29,003 opposed it.
The Alamo Trust said it was disappointed with the commission’s decision but would “remain dedicated to preserving the story of the Alamo defenders.
“We will work with our partners at the Texas General Land Office and the city of San Antonio to evaluate our options as we move forward,” the trust said.
Earlier Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made a dramatic and forceful case for leaving the Cenotaph in place. Patrick challenged assertions that the planned Alamo Plaza makeover was doomed if the Cenotaph stayed put.
He also criticized the project, saying it seeks to “erase history” and would make Alamo Plaza resemble New York’s Central Park.
“We need to stop and pause, members. This is the Alamo that we’re talking about,” Patrick said, telling the commission it faced the “most important vote that you ever cast.”
He said the Alamo plan is “moving forward” but still is unfocused. Patrick said that although the site should reflect the Alamo’s 1700s mission-era origins, the primary narrative must be the siege and battle of 1836 — “the most important 13 days in the history of Texas and Western civilization.”
Patrick also took aim at Treviño, who leads the project’s management committee.
Treviño, who has challenged some elements of the traditional Alamo narrative as folklore and even “bunk,” recently supported the removal of a statue of Christopher Columbus from a downtown park. Patrick said Treviño was likely to treat the Cenotaph the same way.
“He wants to change history. He wants to erase history,” Patrick said.
The city, the Land Office and the Alamo Endowment have legal agreements to renovate the plaza, raise funds and construct an Alamo museum.
But Patrick offered to lead an effort in next year’s legislative session to guide the project forward, remove amusement attractions on the plaza’s west side, and reconstruct and replicate features of the 1836 fort.
But he said the Cenotaph must not be moved to “enemy territory” — outside the area once enclosed by the walls of the fort.
“It’s not the end of the project. It doesn’t have to be the end of the project,” Patrick said. “Let’s think big. Let’s make San Antonio big. Let’s do this right.”
In a meeting plagued with technical difficulties, more than 120 people addressed the commission. Many said they favored the Alamo plan and relocation of the Cenotaph. They included leaders of San Antonio business groups and tourism officials who touted the project as a boon to the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
Opponents said the sanctity of the Alamo should not be compromised for economic reasons.
Carolyn Raney, president general of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, said the group has not had a chance to fully discuss the Alamo plan or take a formal position on the relocation. But speaking for herself, she said she supports both.
She alluded to the Daughters’ role as the Alamo’s custodians from 1905 to 2011, when the group led efforts to convert it from crumbling ruins into a historic site that draws about 1.6 million visitors annually.
“You may take the Daughters out of the Alamo, but you will never take the Alamo out of the Daughters,” Raney told commissioners.
Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, was one of five state legislators who spoke against the city’s application to move the Cenotaph. Biedermann said officials overseeing the project need to “get the politics out of it and listen to the people of Texas.”
“Because of politics, we have not been able to be heard as we should,” Biedermann said.