100 Fun Facts About The Alamo

Which Texian panic followed the fall of the Alamo, as settlers fled east ahead of the Mexican army?

The Runaway Scrape emptied the settlements as Sam Houston's army fell back east; families fled in cold rain, many dying of disease on the road, until the win at San Jacinto ended the flight.

During the Alamo siege, Texas delegates voted to do what?

Declare independence: the convention adopted Texas's declaration four days before the Alamo fell, so the defenders almost certainly died without knowing they were fighting for a new republic.

How many days did the siege of the Alamo last?

13 days: Travis had not expected Santa Anna before mid-March, so the Mexican army's arrival on February 23 caught the garrison unprepared and sent it scrambling into the Alamo.

Two years after the Alamo, Santa Anna lost which body part fighting the French in Mexico's 'Pastry War'?

A leg: hit at Veracruz in 1838, Santa Anna turned the loss into a comeback, and the sacrifice restored the popularity that defeat in Texas had cost him.

What was the peacetime profession of William B. Travis, the 26-year-old who commanded the Alamo?

Lawyer: Travis practised law in Alabama, opened a legal practice at Anahuac in Texas, and fell in with the militants whose clashes with Mexican officials led to revolt.

Mission San Antonio de Valero, which became the Alamo, was named for which Saint Anthony?

Anthony of Padua: Spaniards reached the river on his feast day, June 13, 1691, and named it for him, and the 1718 mission added the title of New Spain's viceroy, the Marquess of Valero.

The word 'Alamo' is Spanish for which tree?

Cottonwood is álamo in Spanish; the name probably came from a Spanish cavalry company from Alamo de Parras posted there in 1803, though some trace it to a cottonwood grove nearby.

Which Catholic order founded the Alamo as a mission in 1718 and ran it until 1793?

Franciscans from a missionary college in Querétaro founded it to convert local peoples; after Spain secularised it in 1793 the mission emptied, and a decade later soldiers made it a fort.

What did the blood-red flag raised by Santa Anna's army at the start of the Alamo siege signify?

No quarter would be given, the flag warned from a church tower in town; Travis answered Santa Anna's demand for surrender with a shot from the Alamo's 18-pounder cannon.

Travis's famous letter from the besieged Alamo was addressed to whom?

To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World, he wrote, vowing never to surrender or retreat; the appeal drew hundreds of recruits, who were still gathering when the Alamo fell.

Travis's letter from the Alamo is popularly known by which phrase from its closing line?

Victory or Death were the letter's last words before his signature, and Travis got the second: he was among the first defenders killed when the walls were stormed.

The famous frontiersman who rode to the Alamo in 1836 had served which state in Congress?

Tennessee had just voted him out of Congress; he told his constituents they could go to hell and he would go to Texas, and he reached San Antonio weeks before the siege.

A Mexican officer's disputed diary says the coonskin-capped ex-congressman met which fate at the Alamo?

Executed after capture, wrote José Enrique de la Peña, who said Santa Anna had him and a few other survivors killed on the spot; others say he died fighting, and historians still argue.

Fess Parker starred in a 1954-55 Disney miniseries about which Alamo defender?

Davy Crockett made Parker a hero to a generation of children almost overnight, and the series set off a nationwide craze for coonskin caps.

Jim Bowie's fame and knife grew out of an 1827 sandbar brawl near which Mississippi River town?

Natchez: the nearby Sandbar Fight began as a duel and became a melee; Bowie, shot and stabbed, killed an attacker with his big butcher knife, and the reports made the blade famous.

Why did Jim Bowie give up his share of command early in the Alamo siege?

He was bedridden with illness after collapsing on the siege's second day; from his cot he urged his men to obey Travis, and he was killed there when the fort fell.

Which step did Jim Bowie take in 1830, six years before dying at the Alamo in a fight against Mexico?

Became a Mexican citizen: Bowie swore allegiance in 1830 and bought up Texas land grants, and the next year he married Ursula de Veramendi, daughter of a leading San Antonio family.

Which Tejano officer survived the Alamo because Travis sent him out as a courier to seek reinforcements?

Juan Seguín rode out through enemy lines, fought at San Jacinto, and returned to give the Alamo dead a burial; as mayor of San Antonio he was later driven to flee to Mexico.

A relief force of about 32 men reached the besieged Alamo from which Texas town?

Gonzales sent its ranging company, which slipped through the Mexican cordon before dawn on March 1 and died with the garrison five days later.

Which lone Alamo defender is said to have refused to cross Travis's line in the sand?

Louis 'Moses' Rose, by most accounts a veteran of Napoleon's army, is said to have left the fort that night instead; the story reached print years later through a family who sheltered him.

Before the siege, Sam Houston asked the governor's permission to do what with the Alamo?

Demolish and abandon it: Houston doubted the fort could be held, but Governor Henry Smith refused, and Bowie and Neill resolved to 'die in these ditches' rather than give it up.

How had Texian rebels gained control of the Alamo in late 1835, before Santa Anna's siege?

A Mexican general surrendered it: Cos gave up San Antonio and the Alamo in December 1835 after five days of street fighting, then came back with Santa Anna's army to help storm it.

Roughly how many Texian defenders died holding the Alamo against Santa Anna's army?

About 200: the official roll lists 189 names, and research may push it to 257. Taking the fort cost the far larger Mexican army an estimated 400 to 600 killed and wounded.

Why was Gregorio Esparza the only Alamo defender spared the funeral pyres?

His brother was a Mexican soldier: Francisco Esparza, who had served on the other side, got permission to search the dead and gave Gregorio the only Christian burial among the defenders.

Which Alamo survivor did Santa Anna send east with her baby to warn Texians?

Susanna Dickinson, widow of an Alamo artillery captain, carried the news with her infant Angelina; her report confirmed the garrison's fate and sent Houston's army into retreat.

Travis's enslaved servant Joe survived the Alamo and was returned to bondage; what did he do a year later?

Escaped on horseback: on the first anniversary of San Jacinto, the man who had told Texas's leaders how the Alamo fell took two horses from the Travis estate and rode away.

Alamo master of ordnance Robert Evans was shot trying to do what as the fort fell?

Blow up the powder magazine: charged with keeping the gunpowder from the enemy, Evans made for it with a torch and was shot down just short, a survivor of the battle later recalled.

Under their shared-command deal at the Alamo, Travis led the regular soldiers while Jim Bowie led whom?

The volunteers: they refused to take orders from a regular army officer and elected Bowie instead, so the two men agreed to share authority over the garrison.

Three weeks after the Alamo, hundreds of Texian prisoners were shot on Palm Sunday at which town?

Goliad's massacre, carried out on Santa Anna's orders, killed most of James Fannin's surrendered command, and 'Remember Goliad!' joined 'Remember the Alamo!' as a battle cry at San Jacinto.

Sam Houston avenged the Alamo at San Jacinto in a battle that lasted roughly how long?

18 minutes was all it took: Houston's army caught Santa Anna's camp off guard during its afternoon rest and charged shouting 'Remember the Alamo!'

How was Santa Anna captured the day after San Jacinto?

Hiding in a marsh dressed as a private, he passed for an ordinary soldier until other Mexican prisoners hailed him as their president, giving him away to his captors.

'Remember the Alamo' appears on which Texas emblem?

The state seal carries it on its reverse, a side added in 1961 that has no legal force and is never stamped on documents; the front shows a lone star ringed by oak and olive branches.

Who added the curved 'hump' to the top of the Alamo church facade around 1850?

The US Army, using the ruin as a supply depot, gave the church its first roof and added the parapet, so the Alamo's famous outline did not exist during the 1836 battle.

Which heiress paid most of the price to save the Alamo's Long Barracks from developers in 1905?

Clara Driscoll, then in her early twenties, put up her own money when a preservation society could not raise it, earning the title 'Savior of the Alamo'; the state later repaid her.

Before Texas bought them in 1905, the Alamo's Long Barracks were used as what?

A wholesale grocery, Hugo & Schmeltzer's, filled the old convent; talk of selling the site for a hotel set off the campaign that saved the building.

Which group did the Texas legislature name custodian of the Alamo in 1905?

Daughters of the Republic of Texas ran the site for over a century; in 1908 member Adina De Zavala barricaded herself inside the Long Barracks for three days to stop its demolition.

In July 2015 the Alamo and four other San Antonio missions received which designation?

UNESCO World Heritage Site status, the first in Texas, recognises how the five missions reshaped life in the region, blending Spanish and Coahuiltecan ways.

According to Alamo legend, what did Travis use to draw a line in the sand for his men?

His sword, the story goes: Travis traced the line and asked every man willing to stay and die to cross it. The tale traces back to one man who left the fort, so historians treat it as legend.

Who directed and starred as the frontiersman hero in the 1960 epic The Alamo?

John Wayne, who also played the frontiersman lead, had a replica Alamo built on a ranch near Brackettville, Texas; the set outlived the film as a tourist attraction for decades.

Which was the only Oscar won by the 1960 epic The Alamo, from seven nominations?

Best Sound was its only win; co-star Chill Wills's ad claiming the cast was praying for his Oscar harder than the real defenders prayed for their lives is thought to have backfired.

Which song from Dimitri Tiomkin's score for 1960's The Alamo earned an Oscar nomination for Best Song?

The Green Leaves of Summer earned Tiomkin and lyricist Paul Francis Webster the nomination; the film's 'Ballad of the Alamo' drew none, though the score itself won a Golden Globe.

Who played the coonskin-capped frontiersman in the 2004 film The Alamo?

Billy Bob Thornton stayed with the film when its first director quit and Russell Crowe, due to play Sam Houston, walked out with him; Dennis Quaid took that part.

Which Oscar-winning director was due to make 2004's The Alamo but quit over its budget?

Ron Howard wanted a darker, R-rated epic with a costlier cast; Disney balked, he stepped back to a producer's credit, and The Rookie's John Lee Hancock directed a tamer version.

Which rock star was arrested in 1982 after drunkenly urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph?

Ozzy Osbourne, wearing his partner Sharon's dress because she had hidden his clothes, was unwelcome in San Antonio for a decade until he apologised and gave $10,000 to the Alamo's caretakers.

Which British musician, a lifelong Alamo obsessive, donated his artifact collection to Texas in 2014?

Phil Collins spent decades buying up relics of the 1836 battle, and after he gave them to the state, Texas lawmakers named him an honorary Texan.

In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, a phony psychic says Pee-wee's stolen bike is hidden where at the Alamo?

In the basement, she claims; he crosses the country only to hear a tour guide announce, to the whole group's laughter, that the Alamo has no basement.

A Mexican decree of December 1835, aimed at American recruits fighting in Texas, branded them as what?

Pirates: the decree held that armed foreigners served no nation at war with Mexico, stripping them of a soldier's protections, and Santa Anna carried it into his 1836 Texas campaign.

Months before the Alamo, the Texas Revolution began when settlers refused to hand Mexican troops which weapon?

A small cannon, lent to the town years earlier for defence against raids, was the prize; the settlers opened fire rather than return it, and the Mexican dragoons withdrew empty-handed.

In 1836 the town around the Alamo was commonly known by which name, still borne by its county?

Béxar: the Spanish presidio and town were San Antonio de Béxar, named to honour the viceroy's family, the Dukes of Béjar in Spain, and the municipality grew into today's Bexar County.

Which Billy Wilder film beat the 1960 epic The Alamo to the Best Picture Oscar?

The Apartment won; The Alamo took only one of its seven nominations after a heavy-handed campaign implied that voting against it was unpatriotic.

How did William B. Travis answer the Mexican army's arrival at the Alamo on the siege's first day?

A cannon blast from the fort's biggest gun, an 18-pounder, was his answer. Jim Bowie thought it hasty and quietly sent an envoy to ask about terms.

According to Alamo legend, William B. Travis drew a line in the dirt with what, asking volunteers to cross?

His sword traced the line in the tale. The story rests on the word of one man who slipped away before the final assault and told it to the family who took him in.

During the 1836 battle, the famous Alamo church was an unfinished ruin missing which basic feature?

A roof was never finished. The church was planned with three floors, a large dome and two bell towers, but it stood open to the sky during the battle.

Mexican president Santa Anna styled himself which conqueror 'of the West' before invading Texas in 1836?

Napoleon was the comparison he chose himself. Captured after San Jacinto, he reportedly told Sam Houston that the man who beat the Napoleon of the West was born to no common destiny.

Years after the Alamo, Santa Anna brought which tree sap to New York, helping launch modern chewing gum?

Chicle failed as the rubber substitute he hoped to sell for carriage wheels. His American assistant Thomas Adams then turned the idea into a chewing gum business.

Which future US president recruited cavalry volunteers in 1898 at the Menger Hotel bar, beside the Alamo?

Theodore Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders at the Menger, which opened in 1859 and still stands next door to the old mission.

Within weeks of its fall in 1836, the Alamo was being compared to which ancient last stand?

Thermopylae, where a small Greek force died holding a pass against Persia, became the standard comparison in both English and Spanish writing on the battle.

Alamo lore says a sergeant from Nacogdoches answered a famous frontiersman's fiddle with which instrument?

Bagpipes were his reply. John McGregor, born in Scotland, is said to have held musical duels with the garrison's best-known fiddler.

At what time of day did the Mexican army storm the Alamo, hoping to catch its garrison asleep?

Before dawn, at about 5:30 a.m., the columns crept forward in silence. Three sentries outside the walls were killed in their sleep before anyone raised the alarm.

Before the Alamo, Jim Bowie and his brothers smuggled enslaved people with which Gulf Coast pirate?

Jean Lafitte was their partner from 1818. Bowie made three trips to the pirate's base on Galveston Island and put the profits into land speculation.

What did delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos adopt on March 2, 1836, while the Alamo was still under siege?

A declaration of independence was adopted on March 2 and signed the next day, after corrections. The delegates then stayed on to write a constitution as the siege went on.

Alamo commander William B. Travis trained in Alabama for which profession before leaving for Texas in 1831?

Lawyer was his trade, learned under the leading attorney in Claiborne, Alabama. By spring 1831 his debts had landed him in court, and he left for Texas.

Jim Bowie, later an Alamo defender, led an 1831 expedition hunting a legendary lost mine of which metal?

Silver was the prize at the lost San Saba mine. Bowie's small party never found it, but fighting off a much larger raiding party on the way made his name across Texas.

Alamo defender Jim Bowie lost his wife Ursula and her parents in 1833 to an epidemic of which disease?

Cholera reached them in Monclova, where Bowie had sent the family precisely to keep them out of the outbreak's path as it spread through Texas.

Which star of The Rookie reunited with director John Lee Hancock to play Sam Houston in The Alamo (2004)?

Dennis Quaid took the part after Russell Crowe left the project. Viggo Mortensen was also considered for the general before Quaid signed on.

Most Mexican infantry in Santa Anna's 1836 Texas campaign carried which ageing British-made musket?

Brown Bess muskets armed the Mexican ranks, and their officers knew the weapon was outranged by the guns the Texians carried.

William B. Travis posted a lookout in the bell tower of which San Antonio church as Santa Anna approached?

San Fernando's bell tower was the highest point in town. A coffin dug up before its altar in 1936 was claimed to hold defenders' remains, though historians doubt it.

Which young Texas heiress, later called the Savior of the Alamo, paid most of the $75,000 to buy its convent?

Clara Driscoll put up the money from her own bank account when a hotel syndicate was circling the property. Texas reimbursed her in 1905.

Missionaries of which Catholic order founded Mission San Antonio de Valero, later the Alamo, in 1718?

Franciscans under Father Antonio de Olivares started the mission with only three to five converts brought from an older mission farther south.

What did preservationist Adina De Zavala do for three days in 1908 to save the Alamo's convent?

Barricaded herself inside, the 46-year-old said she was willing to die for the cause. Spectators and reporters from around the country turned up to watch.

Which Mexican general, Santa Anna's brother-in-law, surrendered the Alamo to Texians in December 1835?

Martín Perfecto de Cos was freed on a pledge not to fight the Texians again, then came back in spring 1836 commanding a column in the attack on the same fort.

Which Kentucky-born Texian was killed leading the December 1835 assault that drove Mexican troops out of San Antonio?

Ben Milam talked the weary volunteers out of abandoning the siege, then was killed in the street fighting. Milam County, Texas, is named for him.

Which Texian colonel set out with 320 men to relieve the Alamo but turned back within a mile?

James Fannin blamed his officers for the retreat, and they blamed him. Weeks later his own command was caught on the prairie at Coleto Creek and forced to surrender.

Which Alamo courier rode back through Mexican lines on March 3, 1836, to rejoin the doomed garrison?

James Bonham had been sent out to plead for help. He was told to tie a white handkerchief around his hat so the gate guards would know to let him back in.

In 1836 the town beside the Alamo was known as San Antonio de what, a name its county still carries?

Béxar began as a Spanish presidio founded in 1718 to protect the new mission. Bexar County keeps the name today, minus the accent.

Before the Texas Revolution, Texas was joined to which neighbour as a single Mexican state?

Coahuila and Texas were merged into one state under the federal constitution of 1824. Splitting the two apart was what Texians formally asked for at their 1833 convention.

The Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot marble shaft in San Antonio's Alamo Plaza, carries which formal title?

The Spirit of Sacrifice was dedicated in 1940 as a Texas centennial project. Several historians believe its carved roll of defenders includes men who did not die there.

Which Hollywood tough guy played knife-fighter Jim Bowie in the 1960 epic film The Alamo?

Richard Widmark co-starred with Laurence Harvey, the Lithuanian-born actor cast as the fort's young commander, William B. Travis.

The 1960 film The Alamo was shot on a full-size replica mission built near which small Texas town?

Brackettville rancher James Shahan hosted the set, later called Alamo Village, which went on to appear in other productions, including Lonesome Dove.

Which Oscar-winning director left the 2004 film The Alamo after pushing for a grittier, R-rated version?

Ron Howard wanted a violent epic in the style of Sam Peckinpah, on a budget of about $130 million. He stepped down as director but stayed on as a producer.

The treaties a captured Santa Anna signed with Texas president David G. Burnet in 1836 are named for which place?

Velasco gave its name to a pair of agreements, one public and one secret. The Mexican government ratified neither, arguing he had signed under duress as a prisoner.

Which Spanish-named bugle call did Mexican army buglers sound as their columns attacked the Alamo in March 1836?

El Degüello came to the Americas with Spanish troops, then was taken up by the patriot armies that fought them in the wars of independence.

Which Mexican officer's memoir, published in 1955, claimed some Alamo defenders were captured alive and then executed?

José Enrique de la Peña's account was long suspected of being a forgery, until a 2001 analysis found its ink and paper matched Mexican army supplies of the 1830s.

Alamo commander William B. Travis, raised in Alabama, was actually born near Saluda in which state?

South Carolina was home until he was nine, when the family followed an uncle to newly opened land in Alabama.

Which British actor headlined the 1969 comedy Viva Max!, about a Mexican general who re-occupies the Alamo?

Peter Ustinov shared the bill with Jonathan Winters and John Astin. The script came from a 1966 novel by James Lehrer.

William B. Travis first made his name in Texas during 1830s disturbances at which Gulf Coast customs port?

Anahuac was a customs post on Galveston Bay, at the mouth of the Trinity River. His part in the clashes there is credited with helping set the Texas Revolution in motion.

Santa Anna's artificial leg, seized by American soldiers in 1847, ended up in a military museum in which US state?

Illinois soldiers took the cork leg at the Battle of Cerro Gordo. A plainer peg leg captured with it was reportedly used by the troops as a baseball bat.

Which Texas state agency took over management of the Alamo in 2015 after a century of private custody?

General Land Office control followed a state investigation, which found that the previous custodians had mismanaged both the site and its funds.

Almaron Dickinson, whose wife Susanna survived the Alamo, was the officer in charge of what during the siege?

The artillery was his command. The last defenders to fall are said to have been the eleven men working two guns inside the chapel.

Santa Anna's army crossed which river in February 1836 on its winter march north to the Alamo?

Rio Grande crossings came after a hungry march. Many of the troops were raw conscripts, and camp followers ate into supplies so badly that rations were cut.

What freak weather struck Santa Anna's army in February 1836 as it marched north toward the Alamo?

Heavy snow, an estimated 15 to 16 inches of it, fell as Texas temperatures hit record lows. Hypothermia and dysentery took a heavy toll on the marching soldiers.

What disaster wrecked Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1724, forcing its move to the Alamo's present site?

A hurricane's remnants destroyed the early buildings. The mission had already moved once before, to a river bank that was less likely to flood.

Alamo: The Price of Freedom, a 1988 docudrama made for a San Antonio theater, used which giant-screen format?

IMAX was new to Texas at the time. The film's backers built the state's first IMAX theater in order to show it.

The Alamo's Long Barrack was restored and opened as a museum as San Antonio prepared to host what in 1968?

A world's fair called HemisFair '68 ran from April to October that year. The city's Tower of the Americas was built for it.

Which teen idol singer, later of the Beach Party films, played young defender Smitty in The Alamo (1960)?

Frankie Avalon played Smitty, the youngest of the film's defenders. He later turned up in Grease, singing Beauty School Dropout.

Which Alamo garrison member, sent off as a delegate before the fall, later gave English a word for unbranded cattle?

Samuel Maverick rode out on March 2 to take his seat at the convention. He later left his herd unbranded, so unmarked strays became known as mavericks.

The Alamo's heaviest gun reached Texas with which volunteer company, formed in a coffee house in 1835?

New Orleans Greys took their name from their grey fatigues. The two companies, about 120 men in all, were raised in that city to fight for Texas.

William B. Travis arrived at the Alamo in 1836 holding which rank in the new Texian Legion of Cavalry?

Lieutenant colonel was his commission, and he nearly refused the posting, writing to the governor that he was unwilling to risk his reputation on it.

Which star of TV's Have Gun – Will Travel had a cameo as Sam Houston in The Alamo (1960)?

Richard Boone's general needs the fort to buy him time to build an army. Boone appeared in more than 50 films and was best known for his Westerns.

Santa Anna lost a leg in 1838 fighting French forces at Veracruz in a war nicknamed for which food?

Pastry gave the war its name because a French pastry chef's complaint of mistreatment was among its causes. The amputated leg was buried with full military honors.