In Alamo redesign, renewed battles over who gets to tell stories of Texas

Everything is bigger in Texas, they say. Everything except the Alamo, that is.

The Spanish Mission-turned-fort was about three times its current size when “Texian” revolutionaries died defending it in 1836. All that remains is a chapel, the first floor of a long barrack, and gardens full of live oak trees.

As the ruins were repurposed to a military depot, then a grocery store, and now a museum, San Antonio has filled the vacant space. The Alamo Plaza is now a place where history and modernity battle for attention. Souvenir t-shirts are sold next to 18th century Native American lodgings. William Travis, the commander of the Alamo, died near what is now a Guinness World Records museum. The Texians mounted their biggest cannon near a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium.

But that could soon change as well…

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