The Second Battle of the Alamo

Send us Fan Mail Description Seventy-two years after the Battle of the Alamo, someone barricaded herself inside it again. This time there was no Mexican army outside—there was a determined Texas schoolteacher inside. In 1908, Adina De Zavala locked herself inside the Alamo’s Long Barrack for three days, convinced that an important piece of Texas history was in danger of being destroyed. Her fight put her at odds with fellow preservationist Clara Driscoll and helped ignite what has sometimes been called the “Second Battle of the Alamo.” It’s a remarkable story about two Texas women who wanted the same thing—to save the Alamo—but had very different ideas about what saving it meant. Show Notes The Second Battle of the Alamo The fighting at the Alamo didn’t entirely end in 1836. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Alamo complex was threatened by development, and two determined women—Adina De Zavala and Clara Driscoll—played major roles in preserving it. They began as allies. De Zavala helped lead the preservation effort, while Driscoll supplied much of the money needed to secure the property. But once the property was saved, the two disagreed sharply over what should happen next. At the center of their dispute was the Long Barrack. De Zavala believed it was an essential surviving part of the original mission and battlefield and needed to be protected. When she became convinced the building was in danger, she took an extraordinary step: in February 1908, she barricaded herself inside for three days. In this episode of The Texan Edge, we look at the women behind the fight, what eventually happened to the Long Barrack, and why the story isn’t quite as simple as deciding which woman was right. Both fought to preserve the Alamo. They simply had very different ideas about what preservation meant. And more than seventy years after the famous battle, one determined Texas schoolteacher was still fighting for the Alamo. This isn't just a podcast, it's a Texas state of mind.