Inventing the Fiesta City: Heritage and Carnival in San Antonio

1: Battle of Flowers: Women and San Antonio’s Public Culture, 1891–1900

18 as tourist destinations, cities and their long histories are often reduced to a particular defining moment. For San Antonio, that moment was the battle of the Alamo for Texas’s independence from Mexico. In the most popular story, the outnumbered Texans fought valiantly within that crumbling Spanish mission, even when they knew they would not survive . The Mexican army invaded the Alamo and killed most of the men, but their martyrdom was redeemed only a few weeks later when Sam Houston and his Texan army defeated Santa Anna and won Texas independence at the Battle of San Jacinto. Years later, the remains of the Alamo would be partially restored and transformed into a “shrine of Texas liberty,” and San Antonio would become known as the Alamo city. Yet the journey from battlefield to shrine was longer than one might expect. For decades after the 1836 battles for Texan independence, the Alamo remainedinruins.Travelersandhistoriansoftenbemoanedthecrumblingsite or took souvenir stones from its bloodstained walls, but San Antonians made no concerted effort to restore the mission. By the time of the Texans’ struggle, the Alamo had been converted into a military fort; later, two German architects transformed the main façade of the church. From the 1850s to the 1880s, the Alamo complex was used as a quartermaster depot for the U.S. Army and a warehouse for a wholesale grocer. . 1 . Battle of Flowers Women and San Antonio’s Public Culture, 1891–1900 Battle of flowers 19 Finally, in 1883, a group of San Antonians convinced the Texas state legislature to buy the Alamo. At this point, the Alamo began the transformation from battlefield ruins to tourist destination. At this particular historical moment, remembering the Alamo became more important not only to the aging veterans of the Texan Revolution but also to those who wanted to script the future of San Antonio. In the next twenty years, Alamo memory would be performed as the center of the city’s public culture, and the process began with a small flower parade. figure 1. The alamo decorated for the Battle of flowers Parade, 1893. utsa’s institute of texan cultures at san antonio. courtesy of the san antonio conservation society. chaPter one 20 origins In March 1891, a group of prominent San Antonio women organized a meeting to discuss a “flower-celebration that would keep Texas history fresh in the minds of future generations.”1 In a flurry of subsequent meetings, they arranged an elaborate parade of flower-decorated carriages to ride through the city. According to the ladies’ plan, carriages would process through the main business district and then would end at Alamo Plaza, next to the historic battlefield of the Alamo. When the procession arrived on the plaza, the carriages would divide in two, with each half going the opposite direction, so that in passing they could pelt each other as well as the bystanders with flowers. Sources conflict about who came up with the idea of a flower battle. A history printed in the 1899 program states that Colonel Alexander, a prominent member of the San Antonio Club, proposed the idea to honor the first presidential visit to the city.2 President Harrison was scheduled to arrive by train on April 20 and spend a few hours touring the city. Other sources state that weeks before the president’s visit was scheduled, a visitor from Chicago, W. J. Ballard, suggested that the city hold a celebration for the bicentennial of the first naming of San Antonio de Padua, as well as honoring the fiftyfifth anniversary of the San Jacinto battle.3 The Battle of Flowers records, which Helene Von Phul first wrote in 1931, credit Ellen Maury Slayden as the first with the idea of holding a parade to celebrate the April 21 anniversary of the San Jacinto battle, which was then proposed to Alexander and the San Antonio Club. I am inclined to believe the third version, for reasons that will become clear throughout the chapter. Letting the ambiguity remain for the moment, however, these three origin stories also reveal the three main groups involved in the parade’s invention—businessmen, tourists, and elite white women. Their three differing emphases are also revealing. For the men of the San Antonio Club, who wrote that President Harrison’s visit inspired the parade, the event was a most important symbol of the city’s integration with the nation. The rapidly...