Alamo Village
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Alamo Village is the name of a movie set and tourist attraction in Brackettville in west Texas in the United States. The set includes a full-scale recreation of the Alamo compound as it would have appeared in 1836. (Today, the real Alamo is in the heart of downtown San Antonio and is surrounded by big buildings.) Alamo Village was originally the set used for the 1960 movie The Alamo directed by John Wayne and starring Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and Frankie Avalon. The subject of the movie was the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.
The set was built by James T. Shahan of Brackettville, who in 1995 was named the "father of the Texas movie industry" by Governor George W. Bush. Shahan began building the set in 1957 for Wayne, who had tried for years to make a movie about the Alamo for Republic Pictures before finally breaking away to form his own production company. The building of the set required over 1.5 million adobe bricks and 14 miles of gravel road, as well as a 4,000-foot runway.
The set was preserved after the end of the 1960 production and, over the years, over a dozen films about the Alamo have been shot there. In addition, over 100 other western movie have been shot using various parts of the set. (The 2004 Disney movie about the Alamo was not shot on this set, but in a new set built in Dripping Springs, Texas.)
Besides the 1960 production, other films and television programs that have used the set include:
- Two Rode Together - 1961 starring James Stewart
- Bandolero! - 1968, starring James Stewart, Raquel Welch and Dean Martin
- Lonesome Dove - 1988, starring Robert Duvall
- Once Upon a Time in China and America - 1997, a Chinese martial arts western
Frank Thompson, a film historian, noted that each production changed the set in some way, big or small, and that the changes appear in each new movie about the Alamo, documenting the current view of authenticity over time.
Since the filming of the 1960 version of The Alamo, the village has served primarily as a tourist attraction and has been very important to the economy of Brackettville. In addition to the replica of The Alamo, the village includes a cantina and restaurant, a trading post, an Indian store, a church, a jail, a blacksmith shop, several museums, and a celebrity gallery. Alamo Village also maintains a large collection of antique tools and vehicles, as well as a herd of longhorn cattle. During the summer, live music and stage shows perform frequently, and over Labor Day weekend the Labor Day Horse Races bring large crowds to the village. Alamo Village is open to visitors year round.
In 2004, the set was put up for sale by its owner, Virginia Shahan, Shahan's widow.