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Even though the words “Remember the Alamo” are available on t-shirts, bumper-stickers, and kitchen kitsch, the Alamo wasn’t always remembered with the reverence it is today. For a long time, the Alamo was used mostly as a warehouse. Even the church, which people rather universally think of as the Alamo, was used as an army depot for decades. Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has the story of two women who helped to change that.
The full transcript of this episode of Stories from Texas is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
WF Strong [00:00:00] The New York Times ran an interesting article on Valentine’s Day, 1908 under this headline Siege of Alamo Ended. A short Hispanic fireball of a woman. Edina Desarrollo had single handedly taken over the long barracks of the Alamo complex three days before. She had padlocked herself, in fact, and refused the sheriff’s department’s demands that she vacate the building. They cut off electricity, water and food. She had to live alone in the cold, rat infested old warehouse for three days and nights, speaking to reporters through cracks in the walls. Through this act of civil disobedience, Adina Desarrollo earned national attention and sympathy in the press. In modern terms, she went viral. Many newspapers covered her struggle to keep the long barracks from being torn down and replaced by a luxury hotel or a park. The Saint Louis Dispatch compared her siege to that of William B Travis, who asked the world to help him defend the Alamo from tyranny. This may seem hyperbolic, but it appears more in order when we consider that Adina DeSalvo, his father, was the first vice president of the Republic of Texas in 1836. Clara Driscoll, another woman with ties to the revolution, bankrolled earlier efforts to keep the Alamo from developers. Clara’s grandfather fought its own to send them, but Driscoll didn’t see the use in. Edina dissolved his fight for the long barracks. DeSalvo had a hard time convincing her and others that the barracks still had the original walls intact, and that that is where most of the Alamo heroes died. She argued that it was the most sacred place in the Alamo complex. After three days and sympathetic press coverage far near then Texas Governor Thomas Campbell sent a representative to San Antonio and promised Mr. Isabela that the long barracks portion of the Alamo would remain in state hands until the litigation over its future was fairly settled. She relented and came out of the building, weak from little food and water. Dina DeSalvo is brave. Stand preserved The Alamo grounds as we know them today. Sometime later, historians confirmed DeSalvo was right. The original walls of the long barracks were indeed still there behind the warehouses, crude wooden infrastructure. So both Adina DeSalvo and Clara Driscoll, despite their clashing visions, are saviors of the Alamo as we know it today. Thank you, Adena. Thank you, Clara. For pointing the way. I’m W.F. Strong. These are Stories from Texas. Some of them are true.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
