Save The Alamo

A few days ago, I received a post card from The Alamo Roadshow at the National Ranching Heritage Center.  I was intrigued.  I had no stories to tell about the Alamo, nor any artifacts to share, but I went to see what was going on.  

Not what I suspected. I thought we might hear about a few of the Alamo artifacts, and then maybe be told about other artifacts brought in for review.  Not so.  The presentation was about the efforts to Save the Alamo.  I am sure part of the intent was to get a data base to ask for donations, because we were offered the opportunity to sign up for emails or submit a survey with our email included (optional).  I submitted the survey without my email. Obviously they know how to contact me. 

There were a couple of artifacts present, and an archivist who would view artifacts, as well as a recording station for people who had stories to tell. 

If you go to the Save the Alamo website, the neatest thing is the Digital Battlefield.  Someone in Georgia, no less, developed an historically accurate website of the Alamo and Alamo Battlefield as in 1836.  You can view the Alamo and environs as it currently is or as the Battlefield was in 1836.  Or you can overlay the two views. 

The preservation and restoration project sounds ambitious, and is probably past overdue.  We need to preserve our history. I was thoroughly unimpressed the first time I went to see the Alamo. It is very small, and just sort of set in amongst all these modern buildings, and it was very depressing.  Someone told me it was a battlefield, it should be depressing.  I did not know what to say then, but now I know it was depressing because it was so poorly managed, so poorly preserved, and there was no sense of awe, or reverence, no sense that this was consecrated and hallowed ground.  I have since been to Gettysburg and Vickburg, and that sense of honor and consecration is present.  And, as I think back, many of the historic sights I visited growing up exemplified that sense of honor that was missing in the Alamo.  I have been twice to see it, because I was in San Antonio, and the second time, in San Antonio with someone who had not seen it before.  But, I have been to San Antonio other times, and not felt a need to visit the Alamo. Maybe that will be different in the future.