State and local leaders gathered in San Antonio Tuesday morning to kick off a roughly three-year construction project for the creation of a new visitor center and museum at The Alamo.
Key to the overall Alamo redevelopment — which also includes street closures, plaza improvements and education centers — is a nearly half-billion dollar contribution from the state of Texas, made possible in large part by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the gatekeeper of most policy that comes out of the Texas Legislature.
On Tuesday, a beaming Patrick, who said he grew up watching Disney’s Davy Crockett series on TV, reveled in the early fruits of that investment.
The site of the future museum was draped in a Texas flag the size of a semi truck and surrounded by Battle of the Alamo reenactors.
On a stage in front of that site, Patrick shook hands with Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, and laid out his vision for a project now considered a part of his own personal legacy.
“God brought together this puzzle of people from different walks of life, of different political parties, and we came together at the right time,” Patrick recalled of the early Alamo redevelopment conversations nearly a decade ago. “Someone gave us a little idea, and they said, ‘Can you, carve out $25 million or $50 million?’ [for the Alamo].”
The state’s ultimate investment came in much higher over the course of several years — with $400 million of it approved in the last legislative session — but Patrick vowed the return on investment would be both physical and intangible.
Within the first five years of the museum and visitor centers’ completion in 2027, the nonprofit Alamo Trust, Inc. estimates the two features will provide an economic impact of more than $11.3 billion for Bexar County.
The nonprofit still needs to raise about $70 million for its portion of the overall redevelopment project, which also leans on funding from Bexar County.
“We are happy to write checks to create jobs, to build the economy,” Patrick said of the state’s investment. “But more than that, was it worth investing that money into what the story is really all about, and that’s the fight for liberty and freedom and independence.”
Many stories represented
Deciding what the story of the Alamo is “really all about” has been a years-long fight.
While some conservatives want to see a commemoration that matches Patrick’s John Wayne-inspired version of events, progressives have advocated for making the site a tribute to all the Texans who’ve made history there, including indigenous groups and civil rights activists.
Alamo Trust Inc. Executive Director Kate Rogers said Tuesday that as it stands, the museum is expected to include eight galleries that each tell a different chapter of Alamo history, starting from the beginning.
One gallery will be dedicated to the indigenous groups settling along the San Antonio River, another to the site’s beginnings as a Spanish mission in 1724, another is about its role in the Texas Revolution “and beyond,” Rogers said.
“The Alamo has been the site of conflict since its very beginning. I don’t think that that will ever be 100% resolved,” Rogers said in an interview after the ceremony. “But we’ve come a long way, and I think people are starting to feel very confident that we will indeed tell the full history.”
Patrick’s personal contribution
While Patrick’s speech focused primarily on the 1836 Battle of the Alamo — which he said mirrors modern fights for freedom happening all over the world — his personal contribution to the museum may focused on more recent Alamo history.
Rogers said the lieutenant governor has his own collection of Alamo artifacts in his office at the state Capitol, including John Wayne’s script from the 1960 movie The Alamo, which the nonprofit has been discussing displaying in the museum.
“A lot of [his personal collection] has to do with the impact of the Alamo on popular culture, which is actually gallery eight in the new museum,” Rogers said. “In terms of content and look and feel and all of that, that’s probably the gallery that he’s most engaged in.”
“It’s his legacy,” she added of the overall project.
Patrick also made reference to his pop-culture focus on Tuesday, telling the audience that like “millions of kids all over America” growing up the 1950s, he watched the Disney show and started “wearing a fur-skinned cap, buying little toy soldiers and reenacting the Alamo.”
“Could I have ever dreamed that one day I would be in a position, decades and decades later, to try to keep the story alive?” he said. “I feel so blessed to be in that position.”
