Alamo visitors now have the freedom to forget the masks
To the delight of Trent Sellers and other tourists, masks are no longer required at the Alamo.
“I love it,” said the 35-year-old oil pipeline worker from Odessa. “I don’t think I should be forced to wear a mask, and I am not going to wear one.”
Sellers, who visited the Alamo late last week with 10 family members and friends, was among the many visitors touring one of Texas’ most popular tourist sites without a face mask.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s repeal of the state’s mandatory mask rule kicked in Wednesday. And Alamo management followed suit.
A week ago, mask-wearing was still required on Alamo Plaza. Alamo Rangers, who police the historic grounds, warned visitors to keep their masks on. They’d enforced the mask rule since the Alamo reopened in August after shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The next day, masks were optional.
The Alamo is owned by the state of Texas but operated by the nonprofit Alamo Trust. The Ala
mo Trust’s board of directors decided to drop mandatory mask rules, but only for visitors — employees still have to wear face masks, spokesman Kevin Femmel said.
The Alamo’s new policy “requires staff to wear masks while strongly encouraging visitors to do the same,” Femmel said.
“The policy was not decided by any one individual; it was reached collectively by the Alamo’s leadership, staff and attorneys,” he said.
Several Alamo employees, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media, are worried about the policy change. They said they expressed their concerns to Alamo management that maskless visitors could expose them to COVID-19.
About 1.8 million people visited the 4.2-acre Alamo grounds in 2019.
Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, head of the state agency responsible for the Alamo, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Alamo Trust’s approach contrasts sharply with San Antonio’s major theme parks, Seaworld San Antonio and Six Flags Fiesta Texas, museums and other tourist attractions. They are keeping their mask rules in place.
Abbott has repealed state mask requirements and occupancy restrictions on businesses across Texas. However, business owners can still require visitors to don face masks on their premises.
The Alamo website states: “Face Masks Strongly Encouraged.” Signs around Alamo Plaza direct visitors to wear face masks. But management dropped the word “mandatory” from the signs.
At San Antonio’s other Spanish missions — Concepción, San José, San Juan and Espada — the masks required rule still applies when visitors are unable to socially distance. The National Park Service oversees the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, which includes the four South Side missions.
At the Alamo, with some guests wearing masks and others going bare-faced, the crowds late last week reflected the division in America.
Lance and Janna Bridwell, who are from Sanger in North Texas, had on masks, but mostly kept them below their noses as they toured the Alamo on Thursday.
Janna Bridwell, a medical-surgical nurse at Denton Regional Medical Center, said she raised her mask while inside buildings, such as the Alamo church and gift shop, as a courtesy to other visitors.
She said she had been vaccinated.
“I don’t care if anyone wears a mask or not,” she said. “I work in the hospital. I never got it. Most of the nurses have not gotten it. It’s been a little too much.”
On the Alamo grounds, visitors seemed evenly divided between mask-wearers and those without face coverings.
James and Shelly Walker, a couple from Odessa, walked around the Alamo grounds Friday without masks. But Shelly said she planned to put on her mask inside the church and gift shop.
“I have respiratory problems and want to protect myself from COVID,” she said. “But my husband won’t wear a mask.” James Walker nodded.
“It’s a conspiracy,” he said of COVID-19. “I don’t trust the government.”
Walker accused Democrats of stoking fear of COVID-19 to gain advantage over the GOP.
Of course, not all maskless visitors see the pandemic and efforts to curb it as a conspiracy.
Mike, a retired Marine from the Dallas area touring the church with his three boys — ages 11, 8 and 7 — on Thursday, said he had been vaccinated and was not worried.
Neither he nor his sons wore face coverings. “My boys are healthy,” he said.
Mike, who didn’t want to give his last name, said COVID-19 cases are dropping, another reason he kept his mask off.
Sellers and his family weren’t planning to wear masks during their stay in San Antonio — not at the Alamo or anywhere else. With one exception: San Antonio Marriott River center, where he and his family were staying.
The hotel is keeping its mask requirement in place.
“As soon as we walk in there, they shove a mask in your face and say, ‘Put this on,’ ” Sellers said. “And if you refuse it, they tell you it’s private property.”
He said he had a mild case of COVID-19 five months ago. He lost his senses of taste and smell for several days.
“We’re celebrating our freedom five months after COVID,” Sellers said.