River Walk and the Alamo

We rode a city bus from our RV park to San Antonio's downtown to visit the Alamo and the famous River Walk. The route took us through a very poor, older section of the city with small, mostly run-down houses. The city center is another world built around the River Walk, which extends for miles along both sides of the San Antonio River. The River walk was created as a WPA project in the 1930's, and was the brainchild of the local womans' conservation group who fought against having the stream put entirely underground. It is Southwestern version of Venice, with meandering canals, soothing, splashing water features, and many varieties of plants and trees. It features scores of fine hotels and outdoor restaurants on its banks. We took a barge tour of the area which is much more extensive than we anticipated.

The Alamo is the centerpiece of San Antonio, and is regarded as a shrine to the bravery of the men who fought and died there. This was originally a Spanish mission that was constructed in 1724, and operated for 70 years, at which time it, and the other missions in the area were secularized. It then became a garrison outpost for the Spanish during Mexican revolutionary period during which an independent republic was established. We were surprised to learn that the Mexicans actively invited Americans to settle in the area to increase the population. The required conditions were that the settlers had to agree to obey Mexican laws, and convert to Catholicism. After a while, to the consternation of the Mexicans, the Anglos outnumbered the Mexicans by a ratio of 10 to 1. The Anglos (known as Texians) did not particularly care for the repressive, autocratic government of the republic, so they rebelled and went to war in what was known as the Texas Revolution in 1835. After a garrison of Texians were killed in the siege of the Alamo by General Santa Ana, this inspired others to regroup, and they were able to eventually route Santa Ana's army. Texas then became an independent republic for the next 10 years; after that it became part of the US.

It would be easy to spend an entire day exploring the Alamo site, and reviewing each of the hundreds of exhibits. Most of the barracks buildings are long gone, and the site now consists of an enclosed square, the Mission church, and part of a barracks in which the Texian soldiers made their last stand after Santa Ana's men had breached the perimeter and had overrun the fort. The roof of the church, which had collapsed long before it became a military installation, has been restored.