Alamo<\/a> is its most recognizable architectural feature. However, at the time of the 1836 battle, the building looked very different.\u00a0<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The U.S. Army is largely responsible for its current appearance, but not everyone thought the changes were an improvement. In 1846, San Antonio made a convenient staging area as the Army prepared for war with Mexico. Sergeant Edward Everett\u2019s Illinois volunteer regiment arrived in August and billeted near the Alamo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A month later, while on evening guard duty, \u00a0Everett was shot during a brawl and crippled. After convalescence, he was reassigned to the assistant quartermaster, who employed him making drawings, plans and estimates to convert the Alamo into a storehouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When hostilities ended in 1848, Everett and most other soldiers returned home, but the Army remained in San Antonio. \u00a0The new quartermaster, Major Edwin Burr Babbitt, declared Everett\u2019s efforts inadequate. However, the Army balked at Babbitt\u2019s demands and directed him to use the existing facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Babbitt wanted a large arched roof over the Alamo, but the existing fa\u00e7ade was not structurally strong enough. He hired architect John M. Fries, recently from Germany, to improve the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Architectural historians have debated what inspired Fries\u2019 fa\u00e7ade design, but back in civilian life, Everett was not impressed: \u201cI regret to see by a late engraving of this ruin that tasteless hands have evened off the rough walls as they were left after the siege, surrounding them with a ridiculous scroll, giving the building the appearance of the headboard of a bedstead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everett\u2019s drawings are held by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n
Coda: In 1908, during the so-called “Second Battle of the Alamo” between\u00a0Adina De Zavala and Clara Driscoll’s factions of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, then-Gov. Oscar Colquitt offered to tear off the now-familiar fa\u00e7ade and restore the building to something closer to the 1836 appearance.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0DRT declined, saying no one would recognize it!<\/p>\n
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San Antonio has long been a tourist town<\/p>\n
![\"Mission]()
<\/p>\n
Mission San Jos\u00e9, founded in 1720 by Spanish Franciscan missionaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
John Greim\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The city has long depended on tourism for a significant part of its economy, but this goes back further than many imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before current theme parks, HemisFair (1968), or even construction of the River Walk (1930s), tourists came to San Antonio. The city had been a regional center since the mid-1800s, but traffic increased exponentially after 1877 when the railroad arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Some tourists came hoping a warmer and arid climate would cure their tuberculosis. Cowboys drove their herds to rail hubs and afterward, spent some of their earnings in the casinos, bars and brothels. Other tourists were from the cultured upper class, who fled bitter Northeastern winters to spend the season in more hospitable climates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Early sights to be seen included: the Alamo and the other four missions, the Chili Queens serving early Tex-Mex foods on the plazas, the Battle of Flowers and additional attractions which railroad ad writers and civic boosters described with torrents of superlatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A visit to San Antonio was \u201cA foreign tour on American soil!\u201d as one ad from the Chicago Tribune in February, 1911 declared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One writer for Sunset, the lifestyle magazine for Southern Pacific Railroad, asked readers, \u201cWhy Go Abroad?\u201d when San Antonio held sights just as exotic as the Holy Land, Spain\u2019s Alhambra or the Orient. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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But some visitors, including writer Stephen Crane, warned \u201ctrolly cars are merciless animals\u201d and make \u201creally coherent history look like an omelet.\u201d Tourists\u2019 interests would only last as long as there were tangible remains of the missions, which looked more \u201cromantic\u201d the more they fell into ruins.<\/p>\n
Pedro Huizar, artist of Mission San Jos\u00e9<\/p>\n
![\"An]()
<\/p>\n
An ornately framed window at Mission San Jos\u00e9 in San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
VW Pics\/VW Pics\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n
In the 1770s, as the stone church at Mission San Jos\u00e9 y San Miguel de Aguayo was being constructed, Pedro Huizar arrived to decorate the church. His beautiful work, particularly the sacristy window, is the source for multiple historical legends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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According to the stories, Huizar was either a renowned artisan, the King of Spain\u2019s favorite sculptor, descended from those who decorated the Alhambra, sent specifically by the King to decorate Mission San Jos\u00e9; or he was a highly skilled young sculptor from Spain, starting his career by coming to the colonial frontier. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In both stories, his sweetheart, Rosa, awaited his return to Spain. Tragically, Rosa either tired of waiting for Huizar and married another man; or, she took passage on a ship to the New World, but was lost at sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heartbroken upon hearing the news, Huizar poured his anguish and grief into his work and created the stunning embellishment around the sacristy window, now named \u201cRosa\u2019s Window\u201d for his lost love.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the historical record reveals a different story. Pedro Huizar was a mestizo from further south in Mexico, who arrived in San Antonio with his wife and children. After his decorative work on the missions was completed, he assisted with the secularization of the missions by surveying lands. His sons were respected elites in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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When Samuel and Mary Maverick arrived, they rented the Huizars’ house downtown. Pedro Huizar\u2019s descendants still live in San Antonio, representing an important legacy of a fascinating past.<\/p>\n
Missions as temporary work<\/p>\n
![\"Members]()
<\/p>\n
Members of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation pause in silence during their 25th annual sunrise ceremony and run in front of the Alamo to honor ancestors buried inside the mission-era church in September.<\/p>\n
Robin Jerstad\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
One aspect of San Antonio\u2019s Spanish missions that seems to get lost is that a mission was theoretically supposed to be temporary.<\/p>\n
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The mission system was intended to be a more humane policy of colonization by the Spanish in the Americas. Missionary friars were to go out on the Texas frontier and recruit willing Coahuiltecans to join the missions. The missionaries would not only convert them to the Catholic faith, but also instruct them in the necessary vocational skills to build and survive as a frontier Spanish village.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the new village reached the point of self-sufficiency \u2014 estimated to take only 10 years \u2014 the mission church would be turned over to the new Spanish subjects as their parish church. The missionaries would then move further out into the frontier to begin the process anew, thus continuing to expand the Spanish Empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was the theory, but reality was very different. Some historians believe the mission system failed as European diseases killed numerous Coahuiltecans, which required the friars to recruit new Indigenous people and begin their remedial training all over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Additionally, changes beyond the missionaries\u2019 control were made as European empires clashed, made peace, and changed maps. The Spanish Crown, which had financially supported the Texas missionary efforts for years, decided to discontinue these funds and instructed the missionaries to conclude their work much faster than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Despite these challenges, the communities begun at San Antonio\u2019s missions continued to grow and evolved into the richly multicultural city we know today.<\/p>\n
Please send tips and questions to mbarnes@statesman.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We live in a golden age of Texas urban history. For decades, historians and journalists tended to ignore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-277017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}