April 7, 2025 • 29 mins
What really happened during the 18-minute Battle of San Jacinto? In this episode of Spotlight Houston, host Blanca Quezada talks with David Avila, Director of Museum Operations at the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield Association, to uncover the true story behind the battle that changed Texas forever.
They explore how General Sam Houston’s Texian army surprised Santa Anna’s troops, the tough conditions of the battlefield, and the myths people still believe today. David also shares how the San Jacinto Monument was built during the Great Depression and the story behind the 220-ton, 35-foot star on top.
The conversation highlights all the ways families can celebrate the 189th anniversary this year at the San Jacinto Battlefield, including:
- Two live reenactments with historical weapons and uniforms
- Interactive activities like quill-and-ink writing, cannon loading, and soldier dress-up
- A free lecture series featuring Texas history experts
- Family-friendly events like musket and cannon demos, medicine making, and flag crafting
- Guided van tours of the battlefield
- Volunteer opportunities for history lovers of all ages
The big event takes place Saturday, April 26, 2025, from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Learn more and plan your visit: https://www.sanjacinto-museum.org.
Call 281-479-2431 or email sjm@sanjacinto-museum.org for details.
New episodes drop every Monday!
Do you have an idea or feedback for us? We’d love to hear from you! Follow us on social media, and don’t forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcatcher:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This year, it's gonna be held on April 26, and it's
(00:03):
gonna be from 10AM to 4PM. And that's where the
entire family too. That this is everything that we have as a
family friendly event. We we want you to bring everyone out, and
we have something to do for all ages. As a matter of fact, that
same day, yes, we have the reenactment and the festivities
going on outside. But inside the museum itself, we're
(00:26):
gonna have a lecture series where we have distinguished authors and
scholars that will discuss different events of the Texas revolution
itself. And we, we will have four presenters this
year. At 10AM, we'll have doctor Paul Spellman.
At 12PM, we'll have doctor Raul Ramos.
At 1PM, we'll have doctor Linda English.
(00:49):
And at 03:30PM, we'll finish up with doctor
Andrew Torget. And, again, they're gonna be discussing different, not
only events, but maybe certain key figures of the Texas
revolution. That lecture series is gonna be free
of charge.
(01:11):
Thank you for joining us for another episode of spotlight Houston, where we bring
you the best people, places, and events in Greater Houston. In this episode,
we're taking a step back in the time to the year 1836.
Blanca Quesada is joined by David Avila, director of museum
operations at the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield Association. They
talk about the one hundred and eighty ninth anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto.
(01:33):
The historic fight helped Texas become a republic. David shares
fascinating facts about the San Jacinto Monument. He clears up common
myths about the battle and tells us what to expect at this year's family friendly
celebration on April 26. From library enactments and
cannon fire to hands on history activities and free lectures, There's
something for everyone. This is episode one thirty two of Spotlight
(01:55):
Houston with an original air date of Monday,
04/07/2025. Spotlight Houston is brought to you by
StoryZone Media. And now here's your host, Blanca Quesada.
Hi, and welcome to Spotlight Houston. I'm Blanca Quesada.
Do you know a little bit of Texas history? I know
very little, but I want to know more. And so I think
(02:17):
that today we're gonna have that opportunity, all of us
together, to get to know more about Texas.
And so if, you know, you do want to learn
a whole lot more, then I recommend that you visit the
San Jacinto Monument And Museum, especially
during the month of April, because there are a lot of
(02:39):
interesting and fun events going on, and,
you will even get to see a historical reenactment.
So we'll get to go back in time a little bit. But what's
really interesting to me is that it's a hundred it's the one
hundred and eighty ninth anniversary of the
battle of San Jacinto. And so I can't even get
(03:03):
that through my mind that it's been so many years. So
like I said, I certainly want to know more about how Dix
became Dixis. And so I've invited David
Avila. He is the director of museum operations
of the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield
Association. David, thank you for being here and
(03:25):
welcome to the show. Thank you, Blanca. We appreciate the invite
to be able to share our not only our history, but,
the information, for this, particular celebration that we
have. Yeah. Well, why don't we get started
by you giving us a little bit of history on the the
monument and the museum itself? Okay. So the
(03:47):
monument itself was constructed, or I should say, we
started the groundbreaking during the centennial
celebrations in 1936. Of course, that was a
hundred years after the battle of San Jacinto on
04/21/1836. And,
it took three years for the construction to come
(04:08):
to be completed. The, monument itself is
500 and, 70 feet tall. And,
it originally was constructed to, to be a
monument to honor the those who sacrificed for the
Republic of Texas for its independence. And,
eventually in 1938 during the construction,
(04:30):
the San Jacinto Museum of History Association was
chartered. And, so then we could house our
collection here in the monument itself. Yeah. It's a
beautiful building. How is it that the the star
was put up in way on top? I mean, it looks like
it's pretty heavy. It is. It's 220
(04:52):
tons. It's Wow. 45 feet tall.
And we get that question a lot. As a matter of fact, a couple of
years ago, we had a special exhibit
dedicated to to the construction of the monument. But to answer your
question, they, they knew they wanted that star up
on top once they were getting near the end of construction.
(05:14):
And, the architects came up with a one inch model. They
wanted it to be a three-dimensional star so that you could see
it from every angle Yeah. From the ground. So they came up
with a one inch model, and they had that out on the construction
site. Actually, on top of water tower that we
had during the construction, we actually have an image of that
(05:36):
star in that phase. Once they completed that
and they were happy with the way it looked, they went ahead and built
a full size wooden model on the ground.
Again, this is 35 foot tall star. Kinda tweaked
some things and made sure, again, that everything was just right. And
when it came time to building it, it was all constructed up
(05:58):
top. And of course that was the last thing that was, done
during the construction. It was an amazing feat.
And again, if you look at this star, it's nine points.
So anywhere you look at three six degree, from the ground,
you'll see a, a star, a three-dimensional star. The star
was built out of wood first, kind of framed
(06:20):
and then put in the stone? That was just for the ground. That was just
so that they could get the dimensions correct. Oh, okay. But you've got cement and
then you've got the limestone facing that covers the star
itself. That must have been a challenge at that time. It
really was. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we like to
discuss, sir, you remember, are the construction took place
(06:42):
during the great depression. So one of the stories that we like to,
emphasize is that out of the 50 or so
permanent online workers or workers construction
workers here, only about 35 of them
had previous construction experience. And the
reason for that was that one of the stipulations since this was a,
(07:04):
federally funded project that the men, the construction
workers had to come within a 20 mile radius Yeah. Of
the site. What I like about the building is that it
was built, like, with fossil. What looked like
fossils to me. Yes. So you've got one of the main ones that sticks
out, it's tragonia shell fossilized shell. The
(07:27):
limestone itself was quarried right right outside of Austin
in Burnet County. And so, this limestone
is approximately a 50,000,000 years old.
It would it's bedrock, so that's why you have all the fossils the
fossil, impressions. Yeah. Okay. Well, now let's get
into the battle. Okay. I'm interested in that. So
(07:49):
why did it happen in that particular area a
hundred and eighty '9 years ago? So Santa Ana was pretty
much, after the Texas army, San Houston and the
Texas army. If you recall your history,
March February, March, Santa Ana and the majority of
his troops were in San Antonio dealing with
(08:11):
Travis and his men there. And so after the fall of the
Alamo, after Sam Houston discovered that the Alamo
had fallen, the, he decided to go ahead and retreat
to the east so that he could kind of buy time. He
was trying to gather his forces. They were a rather small force at
that point in time. And so they were retreating
(08:35):
and trying to stay a couple of steps in front of ahead of Santa
Ana and his armies. And, again, at that time,
they were trying to learn how to pretty much, become
an army, eventually defeat Santa Ana here at San Jacinto.
They were buying time. Yeah. So at that time, the area
was still part of Mexico. Correct. That was, you you can say
(08:58):
Mexican Texas. Oh, okay. Correct.
Okay. But so Mexico wanted to keep the
land, but so Sam Houston was there to
make sure that they didn't. Yes. San Santa Ana was here
to get rid of the rebels. He wanted to squash this revolt that was
happening. Another thing that we like to point out is that the the
(09:20):
Texians, they were trying to work with the Mexican government for
years. As a matter of fact, they initially did not want
to to, become independent from
Mexico. They just want a representation because at that point in time,
they were they were joined with Coahuila. So it was really the state of
Coahuila. So they weren't get getting that representation
(09:43):
because the capital of Coahuila. It was down in in Yeah.
They were they wanted to get that representation that they thought that
they believe that they should have. And with the government, to see the government
being so far to the south of the state, they were just they felt like
they were being ignored. So again, they really wanted to work with the
techs with the Mexican government. But when that
(10:04):
failed, when those negotiations failed, they just decided to it
was best to, become independent. Well, there's a lot of
theories, I think, and stories about how the battle went down,
that Sam Houston was drunk and that, the
Mexican that they snuck up to the Mexican army at
night. There's a lot of, I think, misconceptions about that
(10:26):
battle. Correct. Which and also the other thing I've heard is
that it only took eighteen minutes to win. Yes.
Yes. The actual battle, once the Mexican camp was
overtaken, took about eighteen minutes as he mentioned
there. Now the fighting did continue for several hours.
The men, the Texians, were seeking revenge, and
(10:49):
they had been, again, retreating for months. So
they wanted to, they had all this frustration built up.
And, yes, after the battle, they just kept on going and trying
to capture the Mexicans. So the beginning
of the battle happened at night? The, the beginning of the battle happened
at 04:30 in the afternoon on April 3. Okay.
(11:11):
Okay. Yeah. So you've got roughly just under a
mile difference between the Texian camp and the Mexian
camp. And at 03:30, they started the advance from
the from Oh, okay. French side where they were,
located near Buffalo Bayou. Took them about an hour to get across the
prairies. Remember they were also, pulling along
(11:33):
to, cannons. Yeah. So right about 04:30,
those were the, first shots fired. Yeah. And it wasn't
easy being there either because there were probably a lot of
mosquitoes and a lot of water, and it was just probably
very challenging to be there. Yes. The terrain here is
just unforgiving. And, yes, they the
(11:55):
Texians had Buffalo Bayou behind them. The Mexicans
had a marsh behind them. So as the Mexicans when the attack happened
and you have to remember at that time, the armies, if they weren't
being given orders, a lineup to prepare
to fire and such, they didn't know what to do. You know, they were waiting
for these orders. But since there was a surprise attack, everyone just
(12:17):
started retreating, on the Mexican side. There were some
volleys fired off. They did try to hold the defense,
but in the end, the Texians just overtook that. So as they were
retreating, most of the casualties actually took place in that
marshy area to the east of the battlefield. Were there a
lot of men on both sides? Yes. So the
(12:39):
Mexican army, the night before on the twentieth, they
had, roughly, 730 men with
Santa Ana. Now the Texians, San Houston and the
Texians had approximately 900, a little over 900. But as I
mentioned overnight or the early morning hours of the twenty
first, you had reinforcements come in, about
(13:02):
500 reinforcement soldiers come in for the Mexican army.
So that's another misconception that the tech see surprise the
Mexicans during their. Yes. That, a lot of the
Mexicans were sleeping is because Santa Ana had ordered the
troops that were there the night before to build these
rest works, these fortifications in case of an attack. And
(13:25):
the other 500 men were up all night marching.
So by morning, the next day, they were all tired. Yeah. Most of them
were were sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I
have heard a lot of misconceptions. So, like, for
example, right now, when we were talking about that, it only took eighteen minutes that
but that didn't mean that they each retrieved to to the
(13:47):
Mexicans just left, and that was it. No. Yeah. The, the
fighting went on for several more hours. Yeah.
And what happened to the people that, unfortunately, the
men that, unfortunately, happened to die at that
battle? Was there a cemetery created for
them, or were the both the Mexican and Americans?
(14:10):
So the Texians in the end, you had, between nine and 11
that, eventually died from wounds, from the battle itself.
And, we've got a, Brigham Monument
on the west side of the site, which was the first
memorial monument here on-site. You've got those soldiers
buried in that area. Now the Mexicans,
(14:33):
they, were pretty much left where they fell. Santa Ana did
not want to use his resources or his men to to try
to gather them and put them in a mask for them. Sam Houston didn't
think that it was his responsibility as as well.
Yeah. The men were pretty much just left where they fell. Oh, that
was pretty sad. Yeah. Again, being in a marshy
(14:56):
area that it's mainly areas that
are right outside of the current
site. Yeah. And again, during the month of
April, in honor of this anniversary, you have a lot of
events happening, right? Correct. Correct. We have our
big San Jacinto day celebration and reenactment.
(15:18):
This is an event that we held for years. As a matter of fact, I
think in its current form somewhat, it's been
around since the eighties, probably. You probably got a really
big, resurgence around the sesquicentennial
around 1986. I've been here. It'll be twenty
seven years this July. And since I've been here,
(15:40):
we've always had a, reenactment and celebration.
Yeah. And who participates in these reenactments? So we
have, the Texas army, Texas volunteers that come out.
They're the main reenactors themselves. We have other historians
who like to do this for fun. So we get these gentlemen that,
that come in not only locally, but from South
(16:03):
Texas, North Texas, just all over the state who who like to
do this. Yeah. And so, these guys are
extremely dedicated and make sure that everything they're
wearing is authentic and just is exactly the way they
would appear back in the eighteen thirties. Do they use,
authentic firearms as well? Yes. Most of them do. Some of
(16:25):
them are replicas. And as a matter of fact, here are
interpreters. We have replicas that are nonfiring. They're not even
bored out so that we can hand those to our visitors, and they
can kinda get a feel for exactly what those firearms await
as a way to fill. What about the cannons? Cannons, we
use a couple of cannons, the twin sisters for the
(16:47):
Texian side. And those are cannons that we are housed in the
museum itself inside the monument. Those are used by the Texas
army and the Mexican army has, their their large
wolf cannon that they use for the rain action. But we have those three canons
that are used for for the demonstration. Have y'all ever
found any of the cannonballs
(17:09):
in the fields out there? They we have discovered
certain balls. It's kinda hard to authenticate
whether they were from the battle. Yeah. The it's my understanding that
this area during World War two, that you had an armory out
here. And so some shots may have been shot across
here. Sometimes being in an industrial area also,
(17:32):
you'll get these large bearings that people might mistake
for cannonballs. Yeah. Well, besides this incredible
reenactment that you're going to have, what else is going to happen
on that day? So we have the reenactments. We have
lots of different historical sites that participate. For
example, San Felipe De Austin, Washington on the
(17:55):
Brazos, Presidio Lava, and the Alamo. So we have
representatives that come out and kind of tell their story
and their participation in the Texas revolution.
And so that we call that the the road to San Jacinto. So,
again, you've had a lead up to the different events leading to the battle
here. We also have lots of living history. We
(18:17):
have volunteers. We have some of our staff members, educators, and
interpreters that, provide day activities for our visitors
to participate in. So, you can interact with the
reenactors as they cook food, check weapons, and engage
in, daily routines as soldiers and civilians from the 1830s.
Some of those examples, can be like cartridge making. So this is
(18:39):
something that the soldiers would prepare ahead of battle along with
what we call haversack packing. So this is gonna be what they would
pack in their bags as they were on the March. And then,
documents and orders had to be made. So we also have a Quillen,
Inc, activity that that you could participate in. So we try
to cover the military and the civilian side as well.
(19:02):
Lots of different historical activities that you could participate in.
Yeah. So when is this event happening? So this
year, it's gonna be held on April 26, and it's
gonna be from 10AM to 4PM. And that's where the
entire family too. That this is everything that we have as a
family friendly event. We, we want you to bring everyone out, and
(19:25):
we have something to do for all ages. As a matter of fact, that
same day, yes, we have the reenactment and the festivities
going on outside. But inside the museum itself,
we're gonna have a lecture series where we have distinguished authors
and scholars that will discuss different events of the Texas
revolution itself. And we, we will have four
(19:47):
presenters this year. At 10AM, we'll have doctor Paul
Spellman. At 12PM, we'll have doctor Raul
Ramos. At 1PM, we'll have doctor Linda
English. And at 03:30PM, we'll, finish up
with Doctor. Andrew Torgett. And again, they're gonna be discussing
different, not only events, but maybe certain key
(20:09):
figures of the Texas revolution. That lecture
series is gonna be free of charge. So if you are outside and
if you wanna come in and take advantage of seeing one of these lectures,
you can come into the theater without They sound like they're gonna be very
interesting. They are. Last year was the first year that we had it actually
on San Jacinto day or during the reenactment. But we
(20:31):
have for the past two years, we've been holding this
lecture series. We Correct. San Jacinto under the star lecture
series. And this is usually held four times a year,
but this is the second year where we're doing a special
presentation during the reenactment. Yeah. And I understand
you get a lot of people out there, so we need to get there early
(20:53):
before way before 10:00. We yes. We
encourage you to come out early, but the benefit that we,
of us holding two reenactments now, one's gonna be at
11:00, and the second one will be at
2PM. Oh, okay. So that makes it better for Yes.
Those wanting to come early in the morning, maybe catch a
(21:15):
lecture or two, seeing the reenactment, being able to participate in all
that living history, and then you can leave
and then you can do it again, someone else wanting to come in the afternoon.
The The reason I say that this is a better setup is because in previous
years, we would only have one reenactment, say around
03:00. So everyone who didn't get
(21:37):
here early would be waiting in line to get into the site.
And so you'd have some people who would miss reenactment, but we're giving you a
better opportunity to be able to catch one of those and not having
to really, commit the entire day for it. We'd
love for you to stay all day because there's so many. Yeah. There's a lot
of things happening. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You're to actually
(21:59):
see the reenactment itself. But you have other events
happening throughout the month that will come culminate
in the reenactment or the day of celebration. Right?
That is correct. April is a very busy month for us.
In addition to the school groups that come visit us every
day, we have, programs pretty much every day of
(22:22):
the week and especially on the weekends. We start every
first Saturday of the month. We have a family day and we have a
different program available to, to our visitors. The
reason that we call it family day is that because of a generous grant that
we receive, we allow children to come in free
of charge with with one adult. So if you have one paid adult,
(22:45):
you can bring the kids and take advantage of the different programs. We have
different between musket firing, cannon demonstrations,
flag making, medicine making from the
1830s. Oh, that's cool. There's always a different program that we
have on those family days. And then we also spread that out throughout the
month as well. Yeah. Do you also have tours,
(23:08):
like van tours? We do. We have a daily
van tour. I believe it's at 02:45. And if
you visit, you just sign up. You can go to the front desk as you
check-in. You can sign up for that tour. And what we do is we take
you out to the Texian camp. I believe that we touch the
location of the skirmish on April 20, the day before
(23:30):
the battle, and then we drive you over to a Mexican camp.
And so we give you a, tour of the battle battlefield
itself. Yeah. This is another free there's no
charge for this Yeah. Tour. And with this tour, you also get to
see the surrender tree? So the surrender tree or what we call the
surrender site, the actual tree, we believe, was
(23:52):
lost or that actual location, the ground when the
Buffalo Bayou was widened for the Houston ship. Oh, oh,
that's sad. Yes. Yes. A lot of things were lost when
that that expansion happened. Right? Correct. We lost a lot of
land. So you lost a lot of the Texian camp. Yeah. And
I heard that maybe some coffins were also
(24:14):
lost during that time. During that time you had
on the opposite end of Buffalo Bayou, Lorenzo Desavala.
His homestead was located over there. Oh, okay. A lot of his
family, the, cemetery that he had there, those were
washed away as well. Oh. Storms over time. Yeah.
You had you had a lot of that, the banks that would wash away. Lot
(24:37):
of water over there. Correct. Lot of water. We are surrounded by
water. Yeah. So do you happen to need volunteers to
help you throughout the month for any of these events? We
love to have volunteers, not only for this particular
event, but we have volunteer opportunities all year
long, whether it be assisting with these school groups that
(24:58):
we have, certain events. We have a fun run that we
just held back in February. We'll have
another event that is similar to the celebration in
October. We but we call it the fall fandango, San Jacinto
day fall fandango. And, we really
focus on the civilian side rather than the military side. So we
(25:21):
wanna book in the year. We have the battle itself in
April. And then in the fall in October,
we'll have all that living history, all these demonstrations,
focusing on the civilian side, what life was like like
for them in the 1830. What I like about your events
is that they're interactive, so, people get
(25:43):
to put their hands in there and do their own thing too.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Throughout the year, we'll have these
programs. One of them is going to be included, or some of
these are also gonna be at the reenactment. So we have a
wet weapons touch table where we have the replicas,
as I mentioned before, and you have bullet making. You can
(26:05):
also dress like Mexican or Texian soldier. So we'll have
some of the Oh, that's cool. So the kids or adults can
put these coats on and these, hat, kind of get a better feel.
Every you wanna be engaging. You want you want them to go away
with something, a wonderful experience, and we're providing all these different
opportunities to do so. Yeah. Thanks to not only our the museum staff, but
(26:26):
we have a wonderful staff on the Texas historical commission side
of Yeah. Educators and interpreters. Yeah. Well, there's so much to
see within the museum and so much to do. There's even a theater
in the museum. And so where can we
find all the information for the events? So if you
go to
www.sanjacento-museum.org,
(26:52):
and we have a calendar with all of our upcoming events, and
we've pretty much got them laid out for the rest of the year. So you
can go on there. And if you have a particular time frame that you're gonna
be visiting, you'll be able to see what we have coming up
during that time frame. We also have visit
sanjacento.com, and that'll give you some
(27:12):
more of what we've got going out on the site itself.
Yeah. Yes. You got twelve, thirteen hundred acres out here. You've
got lots of land to cover of all the way from the Texian camp to
the Mexican camp, and it's this wonderful place to come visit. Yeah. And I'm
sure if you wanna volunteer, you can get on the website and get more
information on how to do that. We have all of that volunteering
(27:34):
information on the website itself. Yeah. Do you happen to
have a phone number? You can call (281)
479-2431. And as a
matter of fact, I can give you a contact, Liz Persinger.
Great. And, of course, the San Jacinto Monument
is not too far from Houston. You're in La
(27:56):
Porte? Correct. We are in La Porte. We're approximately
22 miles east of Downtown Houston.
Great. Great. Well, David, thank you so much for being
here, for enlightening us about
exactly what happened at San Jacinto, the battle,
and everything that that, the museum and the
(28:18):
monument and the whole area has to offer us and our
whole families. Yes. Blanca, once again, we appreciate
the opportunity to be able to share our Texas history.
Yeah. And also, I would like to thank you all for joining me, and I
hope you learned a little bit more about how Texas became
Texas. And, please don't forget to send me your comments
(28:40):
or any story ideas that you might have.
This year, it's gonna be held on April 26, and it's
(00:03):
gonna be from 10AM to 4PM. And that's where the
entire family too. That this is everything that we have as a
family friendly event. We we want you to bring everyone out, and
we have something to do for all ages. As a matter of fact, that
same day, yes, we have the reenactment and the festivities
going on outside. But inside the museum itself, we're
(00:26):
gonna have a lecture series where we have distinguished authors and
scholars that will discuss different events of the Texas revolution
itself. And we, we will have four presenters this
year. At 10AM, we'll have doctor Paul Spellman.
At 12PM, we'll have doctor Raul Ramos.
At 1PM, we'll have doctor Linda English.
(00:49):
And at 03:30PM, we'll finish up with doctor
Andrew Torget. And, again, they're gonna be discussing different, not
only events, but maybe certain key figures of the Texas
revolution. That lecture series is gonna be free
of charge.
(01:11):
Thank you for joining us for another episode of spotlight Houston, where we bring
you the best people, places, and events in Greater Houston. In this episode,
we're taking a step back in the time to the year 1836.
Blanca Quesada is joined by David Avila, director of museum
operations at the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield Association. They
talk about the one hundred and eighty ninth anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto.
(01:33):
The historic fight helped Texas become a republic. David shares
fascinating facts about the San Jacinto Monument. He clears up common
myths about the battle and tells us what to expect at this year's family friendly
celebration on April 26. From library enactments and
cannon fire to hands on history activities and free lectures, There's
something for everyone. This is episode one thirty two of Spotlight
(01:55):
Houston with an original air date of Monday,
04/07/2025. Spotlight Houston is brought to you by
StoryZone Media. And now here's your host, Blanca Quesada.
Hi, and welcome to Spotlight Houston. I'm Blanca Quesada.
Do you know a little bit of Texas history? I know
very little, but I want to know more. And so I think
(02:17):
that today we're gonna have that opportunity, all of us
together, to get to know more about Texas.
And so if, you know, you do want to learn
a whole lot more, then I recommend that you visit the
San Jacinto Monument And Museum, especially
during the month of April, because there are a lot of
(02:39):
interesting and fun events going on, and,
you will even get to see a historical reenactment.
So we'll get to go back in time a little bit. But what's
really interesting to me is that it's a hundred it's the one
hundred and eighty ninth anniversary of the
battle of San Jacinto. And so I can't even get
(03:03):
that through my mind that it's been so many years. So
like I said, I certainly want to know more about how Dix
became Dixis. And so I've invited David
Avila. He is the director of museum operations
of the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield
Association. David, thank you for being here and
(03:25):
welcome to the show. Thank you, Blanca. We appreciate the invite
to be able to share our not only our history, but,
the information, for this, particular celebration that we
have. Yeah. Well, why don't we get started
by you giving us a little bit of history on the the
monument and the museum itself? Okay. So the
(03:47):
monument itself was constructed, or I should say, we
started the groundbreaking during the centennial
celebrations in 1936. Of course, that was a
hundred years after the battle of San Jacinto on
04/21/1836. And,
it took three years for the construction to come
(04:08):
to be completed. The, monument itself is
500 and, 70 feet tall. And,
it originally was constructed to, to be a
monument to honor the those who sacrificed for the
Republic of Texas for its independence. And,
eventually in 1938 during the construction,
(04:30):
the San Jacinto Museum of History Association was
chartered. And, so then we could house our
collection here in the monument itself. Yeah. It's a
beautiful building. How is it that the the star
was put up in way on top? I mean, it looks like
it's pretty heavy. It is. It's 220
(04:52):
tons. It's Wow. 45 feet tall.
And we get that question a lot. As a matter of fact, a couple of
years ago, we had a special exhibit
dedicated to to the construction of the monument. But to answer your
question, they, they knew they wanted that star up
on top once they were getting near the end of construction.
(05:14):
And, the architects came up with a one inch model. They
wanted it to be a three-dimensional star so that you could see
it from every angle Yeah. From the ground. So they came up
with a one inch model, and they had that out on the construction
site. Actually, on top of water tower that we
had during the construction, we actually have an image of that
(05:36):
star in that phase. Once they completed that
and they were happy with the way it looked, they went ahead and built
a full size wooden model on the ground.
Again, this is 35 foot tall star. Kinda tweaked
some things and made sure, again, that everything was just right. And
when it came time to building it, it was all constructed up
(05:58):
top. And of course that was the last thing that was, done
during the construction. It was an amazing feat.
And again, if you look at this star, it's nine points.
So anywhere you look at three six degree, from the ground,
you'll see a, a star, a three-dimensional star. The star
was built out of wood first, kind of framed
(06:20):
and then put in the stone? That was just for the ground. That was just
so that they could get the dimensions correct. Oh, okay. But you've got cement and
then you've got the limestone facing that covers the star
itself. That must have been a challenge at that time. It
really was. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we like to
discuss, sir, you remember, are the construction took place
(06:42):
during the great depression. So one of the stories that we like to,
emphasize is that out of the 50 or so
permanent online workers or workers construction
workers here, only about 35 of them
had previous construction experience. And the
reason for that was that one of the stipulations since this was a,
(07:04):
federally funded project that the men, the construction
workers had to come within a 20 mile radius Yeah. Of
the site. What I like about the building is that it
was built, like, with fossil. What looked like
fossils to me. Yes. So you've got one of the main ones that sticks
out, it's tragonia shell fossilized shell. The
(07:27):
limestone itself was quarried right right outside of Austin
in Burnet County. And so, this limestone
is approximately a 50,000,000 years old.
It would it's bedrock, so that's why you have all the fossils the
fossil, impressions. Yeah. Okay. Well, now let's get
into the battle. Okay. I'm interested in that. So
(07:49):
why did it happen in that particular area a
hundred and eighty '9 years ago? So Santa Ana was pretty
much, after the Texas army, San Houston and the
Texas army. If you recall your history,
March February, March, Santa Ana and the majority of
his troops were in San Antonio dealing with
(08:11):
Travis and his men there. And so after the fall of the
Alamo, after Sam Houston discovered that the Alamo
had fallen, the, he decided to go ahead and retreat
to the east so that he could kind of buy time. He
was trying to gather his forces. They were a rather small force at
that point in time. And so they were retreating
(08:35):
and trying to stay a couple of steps in front of ahead of Santa
Ana and his armies. And, again, at that time,
they were trying to learn how to pretty much, become
an army, eventually defeat Santa Ana here at San Jacinto.
They were buying time. Yeah. So at that time, the area
was still part of Mexico. Correct. That was, you you can say
(08:58):
Mexican Texas. Oh, okay. Correct.
Okay. But so Mexico wanted to keep the
land, but so Sam Houston was there to
make sure that they didn't. Yes. San Santa Ana was here
to get rid of the rebels. He wanted to squash this revolt that was
happening. Another thing that we like to point out is that the the
(09:20):
Texians, they were trying to work with the Mexican government for
years. As a matter of fact, they initially did not want
to to, become independent from
Mexico. They just want a representation because at that point in time,
they were they were joined with Coahuila. So it was really the state of
Coahuila. So they weren't get getting that representation
(09:43):
because the capital of Coahuila. It was down in in Yeah.
They were they wanted to get that representation that they thought that
they believe that they should have. And with the government, to see the government
being so far to the south of the state, they were just they felt like
they were being ignored. So again, they really wanted to work with the
techs with the Mexican government. But when that
(10:04):
failed, when those negotiations failed, they just decided to it
was best to, become independent. Well, there's a lot of
theories, I think, and stories about how the battle went down,
that Sam Houston was drunk and that, the
Mexican that they snuck up to the Mexican army at
night. There's a lot of, I think, misconceptions about that
(10:26):
battle. Correct. Which and also the other thing I've heard is
that it only took eighteen minutes to win. Yes.
Yes. The actual battle, once the Mexican camp was
overtaken, took about eighteen minutes as he mentioned
there. Now the fighting did continue for several hours.
The men, the Texians, were seeking revenge, and
(10:49):
they had been, again, retreating for months. So
they wanted to, they had all this frustration built up.
And, yes, after the battle, they just kept on going and trying
to capture the Mexicans. So the beginning
of the battle happened at night? The, the beginning of the battle happened
at 04:30 in the afternoon on April 3. Okay.
(11:11):
Okay. Yeah. So you've got roughly just under a
mile difference between the Texian camp and the Mexian
camp. And at 03:30, they started the advance from
the from Oh, okay. French side where they were,
located near Buffalo Bayou. Took them about an hour to get across the
prairies. Remember they were also, pulling along
(11:33):
to, cannons. Yeah. So right about 04:30,
those were the, first shots fired. Yeah. And it wasn't
easy being there either because there were probably a lot of
mosquitoes and a lot of water, and it was just probably
very challenging to be there. Yes. The terrain here is
just unforgiving. And, yes, they the
(11:55):
Texians had Buffalo Bayou behind them. The Mexicans
had a marsh behind them. So as the Mexicans when the attack happened
and you have to remember at that time, the armies, if they weren't
being given orders, a lineup to prepare
to fire and such, they didn't know what to do. You know, they were waiting
for these orders. But since there was a surprise attack, everyone just
(12:17):
started retreating, on the Mexican side. There were some
volleys fired off. They did try to hold the defense,
but in the end, the Texians just overtook that. So as they were
retreating, most of the casualties actually took place in that
marshy area to the east of the battlefield. Were there a
lot of men on both sides? Yes. So the
(12:39):
Mexican army, the night before on the twentieth, they
had, roughly, 730 men with
Santa Ana. Now the Texians, San Houston and the
Texians had approximately 900, a little over 900. But as I
mentioned overnight or the early morning hours of the twenty
first, you had reinforcements come in, about
(13:02):
500 reinforcement soldiers come in for the Mexican army.
So that's another misconception that the tech see surprise the
Mexicans during their. Yes. That, a lot of the
Mexicans were sleeping is because Santa Ana had ordered the
troops that were there the night before to build these
rest works, these fortifications in case of an attack. And
(13:25):
the other 500 men were up all night marching.
So by morning, the next day, they were all tired. Yeah. Most of them
were were sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I
have heard a lot of misconceptions. So, like, for
example, right now, when we were talking about that, it only took eighteen minutes that
but that didn't mean that they each retrieved to to the
(13:47):
Mexicans just left, and that was it. No. Yeah. The, the
fighting went on for several more hours. Yeah.
And what happened to the people that, unfortunately, the
men that, unfortunately, happened to die at that
battle? Was there a cemetery created for
them, or were the both the Mexican and Americans?
(14:10):
So the Texians in the end, you had, between nine and 11
that, eventually died from wounds, from the battle itself.
And, we've got a, Brigham Monument
on the west side of the site, which was the first
memorial monument here on-site. You've got those soldiers
buried in that area. Now the Mexicans,
(14:33):
they, were pretty much left where they fell. Santa Ana did
not want to use his resources or his men to to try
to gather them and put them in a mask for them. Sam Houston didn't
think that it was his responsibility as as well.
Yeah. The men were pretty much just left where they fell. Oh, that
was pretty sad. Yeah. Again, being in a marshy
(14:56):
area that it's mainly areas that
are right outside of the current
site. Yeah. And again, during the month of
April, in honor of this anniversary, you have a lot of
events happening, right? Correct. Correct. We have our
big San Jacinto day celebration and reenactment.
(15:18):
This is an event that we held for years. As a matter of fact, I
think in its current form somewhat, it's been
around since the eighties, probably. You probably got a really
big, resurgence around the sesquicentennial
around 1986. I've been here. It'll be twenty
seven years this July. And since I've been here,
(15:40):
we've always had a, reenactment and celebration.
Yeah. And who participates in these reenactments? So we
have, the Texas army, Texas volunteers that come out.
They're the main reenactors themselves. We have other historians
who like to do this for fun. So we get these gentlemen that,
that come in not only locally, but from South
(16:03):
Texas, North Texas, just all over the state who who like to
do this. Yeah. And so, these guys are
extremely dedicated and make sure that everything they're
wearing is authentic and just is exactly the way they
would appear back in the eighteen thirties. Do they use,
authentic firearms as well? Yes. Most of them do. Some of
(16:25):
them are replicas. And as a matter of fact, here are
interpreters. We have replicas that are nonfiring. They're not even
bored out so that we can hand those to our visitors, and they
can kinda get a feel for exactly what those firearms await
as a way to fill. What about the cannons? Cannons, we
use a couple of cannons, the twin sisters for the
(16:47):
Texian side. And those are cannons that we are housed in the
museum itself inside the monument. Those are used by the Texas
army and the Mexican army has, their their large
wolf cannon that they use for the rain action. But we have those three canons
that are used for for the demonstration. Have y'all ever
found any of the cannonballs
(17:09):
in the fields out there? They we have discovered
certain balls. It's kinda hard to authenticate
whether they were from the battle. Yeah. The it's my understanding that
this area during World War two, that you had an armory out
here. And so some shots may have been shot across
here. Sometimes being in an industrial area also,
(17:32):
you'll get these large bearings that people might mistake
for cannonballs. Yeah. Well, besides this incredible
reenactment that you're going to have, what else is going to happen
on that day? So we have the reenactments. We have
lots of different historical sites that participate. For
example, San Felipe De Austin, Washington on the
(17:55):
Brazos, Presidio Lava, and the Alamo. So we have
representatives that come out and kind of tell their story
and their participation in the Texas revolution.
And so that we call that the the road to San Jacinto. So,
again, you've had a lead up to the different events leading to the battle
here. We also have lots of living history. We
(18:17):
have volunteers. We have some of our staff members, educators, and
interpreters that, provide day activities for our visitors
to participate in. So, you can interact with the
reenactors as they cook food, check weapons, and engage
in, daily routines as soldiers and civilians from the 1830s.
Some of those examples, can be like cartridge making. So this is
(18:39):
something that the soldiers would prepare ahead of battle along with
what we call haversack packing. So this is gonna be what they would
pack in their bags as they were on the March. And then,
documents and orders had to be made. So we also have a Quillen,
Inc, activity that that you could participate in. So we try
to cover the military and the civilian side as well.
(19:02):
Lots of different historical activities that you could participate in.
Yeah. So when is this event happening? So this
year, it's gonna be held on April 26, and it's
gonna be from 10AM to 4PM. And that's where the
entire family too. That this is everything that we have as a
family friendly event. We, we want you to bring everyone out, and
(19:25):
we have something to do for all ages. As a matter of fact, that
same day, yes, we have the reenactment and the festivities
going on outside. But inside the museum itself,
we're gonna have a lecture series where we have distinguished authors
and scholars that will discuss different events of the Texas
revolution itself. And we, we will have four
(19:47):
presenters this year. At 10AM, we'll have doctor Paul
Spellman. At 12PM, we'll have doctor Raul
Ramos. At 1PM, we'll have doctor Linda
English. And at 03:30PM, we'll, finish up
with Doctor. Andrew Torgett. And again, they're gonna be discussing
different, not only events, but maybe certain key
(20:09):
figures of the Texas revolution. That lecture
series is gonna be free of charge. So if you are outside and
if you wanna come in and take advantage of seeing one of these lectures,
you can come into the theater without They sound like they're gonna be very
interesting. They are. Last year was the first year that we had it actually
on San Jacinto day or during the reenactment. But we
(20:31):
have for the past two years, we've been holding this
lecture series. We Correct. San Jacinto under the star lecture
series. And this is usually held four times a year,
but this is the second year where we're doing a special
presentation during the reenactment. Yeah. And I understand
you get a lot of people out there, so we need to get there early
(20:53):
before way before 10:00. We yes. We
encourage you to come out early, but the benefit that we,
of us holding two reenactments now, one's gonna be at
11:00, and the second one will be at
2PM. Oh, okay. So that makes it better for Yes.
Those wanting to come early in the morning, maybe catch a
(21:15):
lecture or two, seeing the reenactment, being able to participate in all
that living history, and then you can leave
and then you can do it again, someone else wanting to come in the afternoon.
The The reason I say that this is a better setup is because in previous
years, we would only have one reenactment, say around
03:00. So everyone who didn't get
(21:37):
here early would be waiting in line to get into the site.
And so you'd have some people who would miss reenactment, but we're giving you a
better opportunity to be able to catch one of those and not having
to really, commit the entire day for it. We'd
love for you to stay all day because there's so many. Yeah. There's a lot
of things happening. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You're to actually
(21:59):
see the reenactment itself. But you have other events
happening throughout the month that will come culminate
in the reenactment or the day of celebration. Right?
That is correct. April is a very busy month for us.
In addition to the school groups that come visit us every
day, we have, programs pretty much every day of
(22:22):
the week and especially on the weekends. We start every
first Saturday of the month. We have a family day and we have a
different program available to, to our visitors. The
reason that we call it family day is that because of a generous grant that
we receive, we allow children to come in free
of charge with with one adult. So if you have one paid adult,
(22:45):
you can bring the kids and take advantage of the different programs. We have
different between musket firing, cannon demonstrations,
flag making, medicine making from the
1830s. Oh, that's cool. There's always a different program that we
have on those family days. And then we also spread that out throughout the
month as well. Yeah. Do you also have tours,
(23:08):
like van tours? We do. We have a daily
van tour. I believe it's at 02:45. And if
you visit, you just sign up. You can go to the front desk as you
check-in. You can sign up for that tour. And what we do is we take
you out to the Texian camp. I believe that we touch the
location of the skirmish on April 20, the day before
(23:30):
the battle, and then we drive you over to a Mexican camp.
And so we give you a, tour of the battle battlefield
itself. Yeah. This is another free there's no
charge for this Yeah. Tour. And with this tour, you also get to
see the surrender tree? So the surrender tree or what we call the
surrender site, the actual tree, we believe, was
(23:52):
lost or that actual location, the ground when the
Buffalo Bayou was widened for the Houston ship. Oh, oh,
that's sad. Yes. Yes. A lot of things were lost when
that that expansion happened. Right? Correct. We lost a lot of
land. So you lost a lot of the Texian camp. Yeah. And
I heard that maybe some coffins were also
(24:14):
lost during that time. During that time you had
on the opposite end of Buffalo Bayou, Lorenzo Desavala.
His homestead was located over there. Oh, okay. A lot of his
family, the, cemetery that he had there, those were
washed away as well. Oh. Storms over time. Yeah.
You had you had a lot of that, the banks that would wash away. Lot
(24:37):
of water over there. Correct. Lot of water. We are surrounded by
water. Yeah. So do you happen to need volunteers to
help you throughout the month for any of these events? We
love to have volunteers, not only for this particular
event, but we have volunteer opportunities all year
long, whether it be assisting with these school groups that
(24:58):
we have, certain events. We have a fun run that we
just held back in February. We'll have
another event that is similar to the celebration in
October. We but we call it the fall fandango, San Jacinto
day fall fandango. And, we really
focus on the civilian side rather than the military side. So we
(25:21):
wanna book in the year. We have the battle itself in
April. And then in the fall in October,
we'll have all that living history, all these demonstrations,
focusing on the civilian side, what life was like like
for them in the 1830. What I like about your events
is that they're interactive, so, people get
(25:43):
to put their hands in there and do their own thing too.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Throughout the year, we'll have these
programs. One of them is going to be included, or some of
these are also gonna be at the reenactment. So we have a
wet weapons touch table where we have the replicas,
as I mentioned before, and you have bullet making. You can
(26:05):
also dress like Mexican or Texian soldier. So we'll have
some of the Oh, that's cool. So the kids or adults can
put these coats on and these, hat, kind of get a better feel.
Every you wanna be engaging. You want you want them to go away
with something, a wonderful experience, and we're providing all these different
opportunities to do so. Yeah. Thanks to not only our the museum staff, but
(26:26):
we have a wonderful staff on the Texas historical commission side
of Yeah. Educators and interpreters. Yeah. Well, there's so much to
see within the museum and so much to do. There's even a theater
in the museum. And so where can we
find all the information for the events? So if you
go to
www.sanjacento-museum.org,
(26:52):
and we have a calendar with all of our upcoming events, and
we've pretty much got them laid out for the rest of the year. So you
can go on there. And if you have a particular time frame that you're gonna
be visiting, you'll be able to see what we have coming up
during that time frame. We also have visit
sanjacento.com, and that'll give you some
(27:12):
more of what we've got going out on the site itself.
Yeah. Yes. You got twelve, thirteen hundred acres out here. You've
got lots of land to cover of all the way from the Texian camp to
the Mexican camp, and it's this wonderful place to come visit. Yeah. And I'm
sure if you wanna volunteer, you can get on the website and get more
information on how to do that. We have all of that volunteering
(27:34):
information on the website itself. Yeah. Do you happen to
have a phone number? You can call (281)
479-2431. And as a
matter of fact, I can give you a contact, Liz Persinger.
Great. And, of course, the San Jacinto Monument
is not too far from Houston. You're in La
(27:56):
Porte? Correct. We are in La Porte. We're approximately
22 miles east of Downtown Houston.
Great. Great. Well, David, thank you so much for being
here, for enlightening us about
exactly what happened at San Jacinto, the battle,
and everything that that, the museum and the
(28:18):
monument and the whole area has to offer us and our
whole families. Yes. Blanca, once again, we appreciate
the opportunity to be able to share our Texas history.
Yeah. And also, I would like to thank you all for joining me, and I
hope you learned a little bit more about how Texas became
Texas. And, please don't forget to send me your comments
(28:40):
or any story ideas that you might have.
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