State’s historical association future is under threat?

When Walter Buenger wants to explain to someone what history is, he starts with a simple question: when was that fancy façade on the Alamo–that funny gable that looks like the top of an ornate chest of drawers–constructed?

The building is iconic in Texas history and a near pilgrimage site for the thousands of students who visit each year, famous for the 1836 battle during the Texas Revolution. But it’s familiar façade wasn’t built until more than a decade after the battle.

“When the public thinks about the Alamo, they think about it with the façade being there,” Buenger, the chief historian for the Texas State Historical Association–TSHA. “That’s what passes in the minds of many for Texas history, something added onto after the fact.”