The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 70, July 1966 - April, 1967 Page: 399

The Second Battle for the Alamo

A San Antonio group prevailed upon the executive committee
to hear its offer in a letter of April 2, presented and signed
by Joseph F. Ryan. San Antonio businessmen were willing "to
supply sufficient funds for the tearing down of the new walls of
the Hugo-Schmeltzer property . . . and surround the old ruins
. . . with a suitable park . . ."'10 The board adopted a reso-
lution which accepted Ryan's proposition and said:
We desire to remove the unsightly buildings, barns, warehouses,
etc., that overshadow the memorable structure, and restore...
the original walls as remain intact and were utilized by original
and subsequent owners of the property in the construction of the
building known as the Hugo-Schmeltzer property, and, by the aid of
the said gentlemen, we will be enabled to preserve these sacred walls
and insure the preservation of the Alamo Church as our most sacred
shrine of liberty. . ..10o
A committee was named "to superintend the work" of mak-
ing a park and removing the "commercial part" of the Hugo-
Schmeltzer building, and another was designated to seek once
again the governor's approval. At the same meeting the com-
mittee decided to increase the rent of the tenants of the building
to $416.66 per month beginning April 13,107 which partially
explains why the Hugo and Schmeltzer company vacated less
than a year later.
By the middle of April the executive committee's conception
of "original walls" emerged only slightly from murky semantics.
Mrs. Urwitz in an "official" statement for the DRT said:
The preservation of the old walls, even the foundation of the
Presidio, is the keynote to all efforts of the society today-not the
destruction of any part. But the idea of remodelling on those
foundations a monastery is entirely impracticable and chimerical.
Those walls are gone and their stones forgotten . . . . a new mon-
astery, its stones set with this same rare mortar, could not hold
the sacredness which will attach to the ruined walls.108
Newspapers thoroughly covered the 1907 convention, which
opened April 19 in the Senate chamber at Austin, and explained
10l1bid., 28-29.
10elbid., 0o.
10Ibid.
"o"San Antonio Express, April 16, 1907.

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