ROOM IN INDEPENDENCE HALL
The room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. Much of the original furniture is preserved here, and the portraits of those who signed the Declaration hang about the walls.
The colonies grew to populous cities, and the far off plains of Texas became the field for pioneer activity: Austin, Houston, and a host of others, with their love of “God’s out of doors,” left settled parts of America and sought homes upon the spreading prairies of that distant province of Mexico. With these men ideals of American freedom had become instinctive, and from the very first a trial of strength was inevitable between them and Santa Anna, the despotic ruler of Mexico.
THE ALAMO
The Alamo was a Franciscan mission, dating from the eighteenth century. It was strongly built, and inclosed an area of about three acres, upon which stood a roofless church and a few other crumbling buildings. Its garrison consisted of 186 men, under Colonel Travis, and included the famous frontiersmen, James Bowie and David Crockett. Sam Houston, commander of the Texas forces, had ordered that the Alamo be blown up and abandoned; but his orders had been disregarded, and the gallant little garrison was now to pay the terrible price of its disobedience.
Copr. Archer’s Studios
PROPOSED ALAMO HEROES’ MONUMENT
The tower will be 802 feet high, the loftiest in America, and will cost 2,000,000 dollars.