Phil Collins and the Alamo need our help!

[rbertalotto]

I just read an interesting article in "True West" magazine about the rock star, Phil Collins and his amazing Alamo collection. He is donating the whole collection to the Alamo. Worth $15 Million! And he will help build a new museum at the Alamo to house it. He has Jim Bowie's knife, Dave Crockett's possibles bag and his rifle! And much more.
Donations are requested to help build the museum. You can help out here:

http://www.thealamo.org/get-involved/ma ... ation.html

http://www.thealamo.org

See Phil Collins video here:
http://www.thealamo.org/webcast.html

[Lassiter]

That's pretty cool! I love American history in general and Texas history specifically. We went to the Alamo when I was 7 or 8 years old. We lived in San Antonio for 3 or 4 years.

[firefuzz]

I have long been an admirer of Phil Collins and have spent many hours enjoying his music. I think it's a wonderful act to give his considerable collection to the Alamo, which I believe is a piece of United States and Texas history that has been forgotten or at least downplayed in the last 30 years. The bravery of those few men is what legends are made from. The Alamo to me was/is a place of reverence and self-examination.

Like most other male children raised in the S/SW/MW my age, and some female too , I had my coonskin cap, toy flintlock, and walked around with a butter knife stuck in my boot like Fess Parker's Dan'l Boone, but I also had a wooden knife my Dad made me out of a bottom slat on an old Coke case that was my Jim Bowie knife. I have no idea what ever happened to it, but if it turns up it'll be one of my most prized possessions.

I will always have a little doubt that the knife here is Bowie's actual knife. I would like to believe that it is, but it's location was gone to long to have ever been confirmed by a friend or member of Bowie's family that it IS the real deal. Like Jesse James actual pistols, he couldn't have walked with and carried the number of pistols his mother claimed were his and sold, , it'll be hard to confirm the claim. But I want to believe......

Still, a big ataboy to Phil Collin for his generosity, I think I'll go buy another of his albums and let he and I both profit from it.

Rob

[firefuzz]

Duplicate post somehow.

[Ysabel Kid]

I was in San Antonio a couple years ago on business, and stayed right next to the Alamo site twice in a month's span. San Antonio is one of my favorite cities, and I love spending time there and in the Alamo itself. One of Y2K's first toy sets was a bag of Alamo soldiers, which included Bowie, Crockett and Travis. When I was down there last I saw a book Phil Collins had written in the Alamo gift shop. Very cool of him to make the donation!

[Charles]

The future of the Alamo is very much in flux right now. For over a hundred years it was operated by The Daughters of the Republic of Texas as a shrine to the heroes that died there. They never charged admission. The Alamo was free and open to all who wanted to visit the shrine.

The Alamo was the number one most visited place in San Antonio and the Texas Land Commission saw the opportunity to make real money on the place and after a series of battles took it away from the guardianship of the Daughters. It was a dirty nasty deal with much spin, misinformation and down right lies being told about the Daughters. It worked and they were removed.

The bottom line is the Alamo is a cash cow, if the Land Commissioner can figure out how to milk it. The old Land Commissioner ( Jerry Patterson) took a run at a higher office and got beat like a drum. The person who took his place is one of the sons of Jeb Bush starting his political career in Texas. It is yet to be seen how he will do in that office being elected just this past November.

The future of the Alamo is unknown at this point, but the Daughters of the Republic of Texas were treated with great disrespect. They took care of it for 100 years and did it all with volunteer workers (except for maintained and ground people). It has been a devastating blow to the good ladies of the DRT. The machinations of the Texas Land Commission broke their hearts.

[Charles]

I would not get to worked up about Bowie's knife and all the other stuff. Until the Cartels drove the tourists out, buying genuine Alamo artifacts was not that hard. I was offered Bowie's knife three times over the years. For enough money this stuff comes with family trees and all kinds of official government records and documents about the service the sellers ancestor. It was a cottage industry down there.

Much of the crown jewels of Collins collection is very questionable as to it's authenticity.

[octagon]

An article in the San Antone paper recently showed Collins holding a Bowie but stated it belonged to a companion of Jim Bowie - not the original. I applaud his efforts in preservation of the shrine and artifacts.