Alamo Cenotaph

The shaft that rises on Alamo Plaza came three years after this 1936 stone. The Texas Centennial Commission erected the Alamo Cenotaph in 1939: gray Georgia marble on a base of pink Texas granite, sixty feet high, its theme the Spirit of Sacrifice. Pompeo Coppini made the sculpture, with portrait statues of James Bowie and James B. Bonham on the east and William B. Travis and David Crockett on the west, before relief panels of the defenders. Adams and Adams designed it, and Dr. Amelia W. Williams compiled the list of names carved on it.

What the plaque says

Alamo Cenotaph In memory of the heroes who sacrificed their lives at the Alamo, March 6, 1836, in the defense of Texas. "They chose never to surrender nor retreat; these brave hearts with flag still proudly waving, perished in the flames of immortality that their high sacrifice might lead to the founding of this Texas."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — steps away
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• San Antonio River Walk — 0.3 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 0.3 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 0.5 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• Adina de Zavala — steps away
• Alamo Low Barracks and Main Gateway — steps away
• Site of Home (1850 to 1870) of Samuel Augustus Maverick — steps away
• In Re Ricardo Rodriguez — steps away