Welcome back everyone to 1,001 Heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries podcast. This is your host, John Hagridorn, and we're glad to have you with us today.

Welcome back everyone to 1,001 Heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries podcast. This is your host, John Hagridorn, and we're glad to have you with us today.

Today the city of San Antonio, Texas, where this story takes place, is very proud of its heritage and offers a wide array of hotels, restaurants, sites, and entertainment for those who travel there.

Over 14 million people visit the San Antonio Riverwalk each year. It's actually a park filled with lights, attractions, river rides, concerts, and restaurants, all set among winding pathways and bridges flanking the San Antonio River, and all the brainchild of a young design genius with a vision. His name, Robert H.H. Hugman.

It's amazing what one man or woman with a vision can do, and I say woman because when Hugman shared his ideas with the women of San Antonio who were in charge of oversight and development, that's when the pocketbooks opened and a dream became a reality.

In 1921 the resulting floods from a hurricane devastated San Antonio, killing dozens, and setting San Antonio back on its heels financially.

Hugman, a young architect, had lived in New Orleans for three years and was impressed with how they recreated the French Quarter there, combining the cultural heritage of the town with its history and giving the city its own unique flavor unlike any other.

Hugman was able to solve the flooding problem, restore a sense of pride and heritage in San Antonio, and create a mecca for tourists all in one fell swoop.

The River Walk is open 365 days a year, and busy as well. As I write, Christmas of 2021 is now in sight, the holiday lights on the River Walk will be dazzling visitors, and whether permitting there will be boats packed full of Christmas carolers winding their way past crowded restaurant patios.

Quite a different sight than the one Alvar Nuñez Cabezadevaca, a shipwreck Spanish explorer, received when he first saw the San Antonio River in 1536, 71 years before Captain Smith first saw the Jess Big Bay.

San Antonio, and much of Texas for that matter, was built and fought for by men with visions. In 1820, Moses Austin petitioned the Spanish Governor in San Antonio for a permit to settle Americans in Texas, and it was granted.

By 1825, U.S. immigrant families began purchasing land on the River in San Antonio. By 1830, however, Mexico declared U.S. Immigration illegal. By 1835, Stephen Austin and a revolutionary army led by Jim Bowie and others laid seas to San Antonio de Bejar, and now blood had been spilled, and there was no turning back.

And now it's morning of March 6, 1836, as Santa Ana, the self-proclaimed ruler of Mexico, ordered his troops to attack the Alamo Mission and kill every last one of the Texians and Tejanos who had raised their flag there.

Travis had made every effort to bring in reinforcements. The last messages had been sent by couriers. The defenses, what there were of them, were in place, and 182 men were ready to spend what looked like the last hours of their lives defending their right to be there.

Keep in mind, too, that Santa Ana was no beneficent ruler that toiled for the benefit of all. He was a ruthless, self-aggrandizing despot with an army which had no compulsions about killing everyone who got in its way.

Outside the walls of the Alamo, Santa Ana had placed four columns of entry men with about 800 men in each column. Two columns would attack the northeast and northwest corners. Another would strike the east wall, and the fourth column would attack the vulnerable palisade on the south wall.

The cavalry, about 300 strong, would be held to the east to pick up the Texians that they tried to break out. Santa Ana would direct the battle with the fiercest epidories. The fighting engineers included the 400 men reserved.

In all, Santa Ana had access to nearly 4,000 men. He may have attacked the Alamo with 1,200 to 600 men, but he had nearly 4,000 men there ready to fight, and he considered them disposable as well, and they followed him out of fear, not out of respect.

At about 5am, just as the eastern sky began to take on a red glow, someone yelled, Viva Santa Ana, and the bugger sounded the attack. It was an all-out rush on the four sides of the Alamo.

Travis ran for the north wall. The gunners atop the barracks opened up on the rushing Mexican army and cannon fired boom from all around the perimeter.

The riflemen, most of whom had loaded, stacked muskets near them, carefully picked their targets.

Cannon fired mixed shot, and waves of Mexican soldiers fell as if cut down by an invisible sight.

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