The Alamo

The Alamo was a mission for a century before it was a battle. Franciscans founded San Antonio de Valero in 1718 — first of the five missions on the San Antonio River — to convert the Coahuiltecan peoples and anchor Spain's claim to Texas. The chapel's cornerstone was laid in 1744; the mission secularized in 1793; and the Spanish cavalry company from Álamo de Parras that garrisoned it after 1803 probably gave it the name — though the cottonwoods along the acequia claim the honor too.

The thirteen days that made it famous came in February-March 1836 — Travis's letter 'To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World' ('I shall never surrender or retreat'), Santa Anna's arrival a month before anyone expected him, the ~200 defenders behind the unfinished walls, the final predawn assault on March 6 that killed Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and every fighting man inside. Santa Anna won the fort and lost the war — 'Remember the Alamo' carried Houston's army to San Jacinto six weeks later.

The site kept changing masters — Spain, Mexico, Texas, the United States, the Confederacy, the Army's quartermaster depot, then the Daughters of the Republic of Texas who fought the 'second battle of the Alamo' to save the church and Long Barrack from demolition. What's left — the church facade everyone knows, the Long Barrack where the last stand happened — is a fragment of the original compound, in the middle of a city that grew around it.

The Alamo is the archive's remembered file — the 1718 mission turned fortress where 200 defenders died on March 6, 1836, the defeat that became the rallying cry that won Texas, preserved by the women who fought its second battle.