It’s not the Alamo, but it’s pretty close
SAN ANTONIO — Just about everyone from blushing brides and quinceañera princesses to new car owners has struck a pose outside a certain Cradle of Texas Liberty right here in San Antonio. Only this Alamo stands 8 miles from the real thing and is best remembered for its picture-perfect resemblance to it.
Twenty years ago, the aptly named Alamo Federal Credit Union opened its home office inside a lifesize replica of its 18th-century namesake, designed by a
Texas architectural firm to replicate the Alamo’s iconic facade, from its parapet up top to its five barred windows and the four spiraled columns surrounding the giant carved wooden doors at its center.
The site off Interstate 10 on First Park Ten Boulevard was memorable enough for business, but even more so for photos. John F. Kirk, the former CEO of Alamo Federal, often invited credit union members and Air Force graduates to swing by for a pic.
He and his staff even shot a photo out front beneath a
GO SPURS GO banner while holding letters that spelled “SAY YOURE SORRY CHARLES,” a dig at NBA great Charles Barkley for his frequent jabs at the Spurs’ hometown.
“Needless to say, we had a lot of fun with that building,” Kirk said.
Today, the building continues to delight building staffers and passers-by alike. BioBridge Global, the nonprofit parent organization of the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, set up its community affairs and human resources offices at the site late last year, not after a 13-day siege but after a three-month remodel that cost $200,000 and transformed most of the inside work space while preserving its historic-seeming exterior.
“It’s a fun thing. Everyone enjoys it,” said Mary Uhlig, executive director of community affairs for BioBridge. The building makes a great icebreaker for visitors who come for meetings, she said, while employees get a kick out of snapping company photos at such a dead ringer of Texas’ most famous landmark.
Then there are those who pull up after-hours and on weekends for their own postcard-worthy pics. Uhlig and her staff have seen and heard about all sorts of special occasions captured outside their front door, including carefully curated bridal and model shoots. It is certainly easier to take photos at the relatively hidden Alamo stand-in than its evercrowded predecessor.
Brothers Jeff and John White of the former Bank Design and Construction Corp. designed the Alamo Federal building as “an almost perfect, if not exact, replica of the Alamo,” the late Jeff White is quoted as saying in a 2000 interview with the San Antonio Business Journal.
In addition to doing a historic background check and field measurements, Jeff White noted they went so far as to ship hand-cut limestone from Mexico to resemble the Alamo’s famous exterior, minus the bullet holes. Construction reportedly took seven months, with the credit union open for business in November 1999.
Blueprints for the credit union show a design so Alamo-accurate it could have come from the Spanish missionaries who built the original more than 200 years prior. The only difference: “It’s 1 foot shorter than the actual Alamo,” Kirk said.
As for what the real Alamo’s caretakers think of such a reproduction, Alamo conservator Pam
Jary Rosser would gladly fight by its designers’ side.
“It’s beautiful. They did a great job,” Rosser said. “The master makers who built this could relate to those that built the original. They clearly appreciated all the hard work that the Franciscans and Native Americans did.”
Uhlig said about the only other Alamo replica that’s come close to such scale and attention to detail was the movie set built for the 1960 film “The Alamo,” which starred and was directed by John Wayne. That tourist attraction outside Brackettville, about 2 ½ hours west of San Antonio, closed for good in 2010.