Clara Driscoll (April 2, 1881-July 17, 1945)

After the Alamo purchase, Driscoll turned to writing. She published a novel, The Girl of La Gloria, in 1905, a story collection, In the Shadow of the Alamo, in 1906, and financed the Broadway production of her comic opera Mexicana that year. In Austin she built Laguna Gloria, an Italianate mansion on the Colorado River, later given to the Texas Fine Arts Association as a museum. Running the family's holdings after 1929, she nearly doubled their value, and in Corpus Christi she built the twenty-story Hotel Robert Driscoll for her brother.

What the plaque says

Clara Driscoll (April 2, 1881-July 17, 1945) A descendant of early Texas colonist, including a veteran of San Jacinto, Clara Driscoll was born in Refugio County and grew up as a wealthy rancher's daughter. In 1903, soon after returning from school in Europe, she learned that the Long Barrack, part of the historic Alamo, was about to be sold as a hotel site. When the state failed to act, she bought the property, using her own funds to supplement money raised by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Her gesture sparked public interest and won her the title "Savior of the Alamo." The state reimbursed her in 1905 and placed the Alamo in the care of the DRT. In 1932 she helped the state buy land south of the Alamo Chapel. Clara Driscoll was active in business, politics, and the arts. She headed several state organizations, including the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and served as Democratic National Committeewoman, 1928-44. She gave generously to support the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs, the Texas Fine Arts Association, and medical services for underprivileged children. Married to newspaperman Henry H. Seveir, 1906-37, she lived in Austin before moving to Corpus Christi to manage family properties. After she died, her body lay in state in the Alamo Chapel before burial here. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — 1.1 mi
  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.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 1.1 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 Antonio River Walk — 1.2 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.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 1.5 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

• John Lang Sinclair — steps away
• James Nathaniel Fisk — steps away
• Simona Smith Fisk — steps away
• Samuel S. Smith — steps away