Pilgrimage to Alamo continues despite virus
In spite of the pandemic, the heritage organization that was instrumental in staging the first Pilgrimage to the Alamo in 1918 held a scaled-down version Wednesday on the 103rd anniversary of the solemn Fiesta event’s origins.
The pilgrimage, held each year on or near April 21 — the anniversary of the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto — is a memorial tribute to the soldiers and volunteers who died in the Battle of the Alamo. In a normal year, hundreds or thousands of people with ancestral ties to the Texas Revolution, often joined by youth groups, would walk from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by the Tobin Center to the Alamo. At the same time, names of Alamo defenders would be called out at the historic mission and battle site. Wreaths are then placed on the lawn in front of the Alamo church during a reverent ceremony.
Although sponsorship of the pilgrimage has changed at times, the Alamo Mission Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas was involved in creating the event and still organizes it today. Local Boy Scouts participated in the first pilgrimage on April 21, 1918, when many local men had gone to fight in World War I, a few months before a severe influenza pandemic reached Texas. In some years since then, the governor of Texas participated in the event.
This year, with concerns about COVID-19 lingering, members of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas chapter placed wreaths at the Alamo without a procession or memorial program. The pilgrimage is one of eight Fiesta events, along with the Battle of Flowers and Fiesta Flambeau parades, Investiture of King Antonio and tributes to today’s U.S. Armed Forces, that will continue in Alamo Plaza under an updated Alamo plan supported by the city and Texas General Land Office.