Alamo Low Barracks and Main Gateway

The company from Parras gave the place its name. Its long title, La Segunda Compañía Volante de San Carlos de Parras, shortened in use to La Compañía del Álamo, or simply El Álamo, and through it Mission Valero came to be called the Alamo. More than 200 men, women and children lived in the military community inside the walls, and by 1805 the company had opened San Antonio's first military hospital in the upper floor of the convent. Fearing an American invasion in 1809, it added 834 varas of battlement, including a south wall with a large gate.

What the plaque says

Alamo Low Barracks and Main Gateway Mission San Antonio de Valero, established nearby in 1718, was relocated here in 1724. By 1762, the Mission Plaza was enclosed by thick stone and adobe walls. The 11 x 14-foot main gateway was located at this site along the south wall. In 1803 Spanish cavalry from San Carlos de Parras del Alamo, Mexico, occupied the secularized mission and built one-story (low) barracks inside the south wall on each side of the main gateway. The Alamo, as the complex came to be known, was occupied in 1835 by Mexican soldiers led by Gen. Cos. They fortified the main gateway with artillery pieces and a defensive lunette, a semi-circular enclosure with deep trenches. In December 1835, Texas patriots captured the Alamo, but by Feb. 23, 1836, were under siege by an armed force led by Gen. Santa Anna. Couriers departed the Alamo through the main gateway during the siege. On March 6 Mexican troops breached the main gateway and retook the Alamo. After the assault, some Mexican military observers and local residents stated that Col. James Bowie and others died in the low barracks. The low barracks and main gateway were leveled in 1871, melding Valero Plaza on the south with the Alamo's plaza to create an open space. (1996)

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

• Alamo Cenotaph — steps away
• San Antonio Section, National Council of Jewish Women — steps away
• Barbed Wire Demonstration — steps away
• Adina de Zavala — steps away