The Alamo: Ruins and Reuse
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The Alamo ceased to be an active mission in 1793. Its principal nineteenth-century use was as a military post, changing hands at least sixteen times between Spanish, Mexican, Texan, Union, and Confederate forces. For a decade after the Texas Revolution of 1836, the site lay in abandoned, picturesque ruins, attracting both scavengers and sketchers imbued with the nineteenth-century taste for the romantic and mysterious. During the mid-1840s, however, the United States Army occupied the site for a supply depot, cleaning up rubble, repairing buildings, and eventually finishing off the old mission church with its now-famous arched facade. |