Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
The Alamo reached another major milestone in its more than half-a-billion-dollar makeover on Thursday with the grand opening of the Texas Cavaliers Education Center.
The center, located behind the iconic Alamo Church, is expected to welcome 250,000 school children annually for educational experiences.
The facility in the former Alamo Hall features safe school bus access, a theater, and immersive classrooms. There is also a STEM Lab to connect the Alamo to topics, including archaeology, architecture and physics. And a Distance Learning Studio with live broadcasts makes it accessible to school children across Texas and elsewhere.
There is also an Early Learners Hub for children under 5 years old along with outdoor learning spaces, including a garden for growing staples like corn and beans, an acequia irrigation canal, and an horno communal oven for cooking.
"So today, we open more than a building," said Alamo Trust President and CEO Hope Andrade. "We open a doorway to understanding, to curiosity, and to a deeper connection with the history of this place and with its future."
The nonprofit Texas Cavaliers made a $5 million dollar donation to help make the center a reality. The organization's Fiesta King Antonio CIII Gardner Marshall Peavy also spoke at the grand opening ceremony.
"To the children who will fill this place, this is your place. It's for you," he said. "Viva Fiesta, viva San Antonio, remember the Alamo."
In Texas public schools, children are taught lessons about the Alamo in the fourth and seventh grades as part of Texas history classes.
The education center follows openings of a new collections building, a recreation of the main gate of the Alamo, an outdoor shaded pavilion, and coming in 2027, a new visitor center and museum across from the Alamo.
The visitor center and museum will include a theater with simulated battle effects and exhibit areas to tell a more inclusive story of the people and events before, during, and after the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 that helped win Texas independence from Mexico.
All of the expansion is part of the Alamo Plan and includes Alamo Plaza. It is financed by the city, county, state, and by private giving and is intended to provide a bigger and more educational experience for the Alamo's nearly 2 million annual visitors, on par with National Historical Park sites.
The state has paid for the lion's share of the project, well over half-a-billion dollars.
