Our Riverwalk

by Julia Hayden

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the downtown Riverwalk is the heart of San Antonio – after the Alamo, it’s the other completely unique tourist attraction. Water, trees and skinny riverbank gardens in the heart of a high-rise city – not many other places like it, and all hail Robert Hugman, the architect-genius who conceived the idea of a riverbank promenade, lined with shops and adorned with bridges and gardens.

Water and plenty of it drove the establishment of a settlement and missions here in the first place: an oasis in what was otherwise near enough to a desert. Early San Antonio looked to the water, measured out careful amounts through the acequias, the irrigation ditches. By the mid-19th…

Open Air History - The Alamo

Click photos to enlarge

I'm not alone in this mad love of history, in being so besotted by events and eras to the point of studying certain aspects down to the sub-atomic level. I only write about it, which is the traditional venue for those like Miniver Cheevy, who wistfully believe they were born too late. There have been writers who have done very well by antiquarian enthusiasms; Sir Walter Scott almost single handedly popularizing the sport of jousting in mid-19th century England and America, as well as a passion for plaid. Indeed, the 19th century went on a Gothic bender for decades. Anyway, this kind of enthusiasm is not confined any more to scribblers of genre…

The Old Spanish Mission at the Edge of Town

And that's what it was - a hundred and seventy-five years ago this spring - when the Alamo achieved fame immortal, just before sunrise in the spring of 1836. Visitors are usually taken back to discover that it is so small. I was, the first time I visited it as an AF trainee on town-pass in 1978; a little Spanish colonial style chapel, in limestone weathered to the color of dark ivory.

The church and the ‘Long Barracks' are the only buildings remaining of Mission San Antonio de Valero; the northernmost of a linked chain of five missions complexes, threaded like baroque pearls on a green ribbon, and originally established to tend to the spiritual needs and the…

An Old Fashioned San Antonio Diner at the Alamo

I wouldn't claim that San Antonio's G/M Steakhouse is the oldest continuously operating diner and purveyor of fast food, in all it's infinite varieties and greasy-grilled glory, but at fifty years and apparently going strong, it's definitely in the running. This, my children, is what fast food used to be, before the days of Micky D's, BK and Wendy's drive-up window open to all hours. This fountain of classic fast-food delights - hamburgers, fries, grilled sandwiches, breakfast tacos and chicken-fried steaks (plus all sorts of other steaks) is just across Alamo Plaza from another classic San Antonio institution of slightly longer duration, the Menger Hotel. My…

Around in Back Of the Alamo

The front of the Alamo is instantly recognizable; almost like a stage set. Everybody knows the bed-stead outline with what would have been a pair of towers on either side, a pair of shell-supported niches on either side of the door ... were there ever statues in those niches? I've always wondered about that. It was a mission church, when first built, then a chapel for the Mexican Army garrison, and at some point the roof over the nave and sanctuary collapsed in.

When the Alamo achieved fame everlasting, in the space of 14 days and a murderous hour and a half of pitched battle on a dark April morning, the church building had made into a bastion, filled with a platform and a…

Created Tuesday, 06 March 2007 23:27

The thirteen day siege of the Alamo ended after a bloody final battle which resulted in the deaths of all the defenders and the capture of the mission. Two hundred men inside the mission had no hope to hold out against the six thousand besiegers. It was the siege at the Alamo that managed to stall the Mexican Army to give General Sam Houston thirteen days to rally his forces and gather his troops for the final battle to come. The fall of the Alamo and the massacre at Goliad became the inspiration for the battle cry for Houston's Republican Army at the battle of San Jacinto. 

Texas declared independence on March 2, right during the siege at the Alamo. The defenders likely had no idea of this event. David G.…