With the redevelopment of Alamo Plaza at the center of recent public debate, I invited Lewis Fisher, one of San Antonio’s leading historians, to share details about the various structures at the iconic site.
Fisher is the author of Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage, a book dedicated to tales of the city’s efforts to preserve its past. While the State of Texas in 1883 bought the Alamo Church specifically to preserve it as a historical landmark, other parts of the site were under different ownership or developed after the fact.
Development between the conclusion of the famous Battle and the plaza’s resurgence as a commercial center in the late 19th century created a mixed bag of historically and architecturally significant structures – and most are worthy of preservation, Fisher says.
With talk of the State taking control of Alamo Plaza in the new plan, Fisher says San Antonians should give no more control of the famed plaza to the State than they did to Santa Anna.
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As a San Antonian and a Texan, I can’t wait to see this completed!
I know you guys don’t like it, but I do!
I would gladly fight Santa Ana, but not going to fight a sincere attempt by our great State to bring proper sense of reverence and place to this great site. That’s my opinion, don’t give a hot dang if you don’t like it!
Make sure to have a great weekend everyone, breathe deeply, and remember the many wonderful ways to spend your precious time other than constantly petitioning and protesting! I know you could spend your entire life finding things to be upset about, they are all around you, but everyone try for once in this day and age the opposite! This whole city could really benefit to go on a long run followed by a cold shower.
Happy Friday.
🙂
For a better context of how the chapel and the plaza were not important symbols until late in the 19th century and only became uplifted by remembrance societies read “Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol” by Richard R. Flores.
Can Rick interview Flores?
In William Corner’s 1890 publication, San Antonio de Bexar, The Alamo was on the top of his list of what to see. On page 6 he states: “For years-since 1878 almost up to the present time-this system was the only one which San Antonio had…… The system serves about all parts of the city, and all of its lines, except the Flores St. line, focus on the Alamo Plaza.”
Alamo Plaza has been a center of public interaction and transportation since it existed and it should remain accessible to the public from all directions.
Don’t close the street!
Yes the plaza should be more accessible to the public. The current layout prioritizes automobile traffic, making the plaza more difficult for the public access and use.