Alamo Village Movie Location
Box 528
Bracketville, Tx. 78832
March 08, 2000
While in 
Del Rio, Bob
and I took a short run up to Brackettville, accompanied by Sue
and Lynn Davis, to see the first Texas movie stage location.
Known simply as Alamo Village. This sprawling complex was the
stage for John Wayne's 1959 epic movie "The Alamo". The
Alamo set took 2 years to build. Upon completion, the movie would
be the most expensive movie then made in the U.S. with costs
topping 12 million dollars (a drop in the bucket by today's standards). The Alamo, and the town, were built
with a dedication to authentically replicating San Antonio during
the
early 1800's. More then a million and a quarter adobe bricks were
made and used. It took 12 miles of water pipe, 30,000 square feet
of imported Spanish roofing tile, and a million square feet of
concrete flooring. The Alamo Village is a complete town with
jails, saloons, general stores, hotels, stables, a church, bank
and blacksmiths shop. Additional construction allows this, one 
of a kind,
facility to serve movie production companies as a fort,
hacienda, frontier town, or deserted Mexican village. Its many
buildings, store an assortment of props from stage coaches,
wagons, buggies, surreys, guns and period clothing. A prize herd
of registered Texas Longhorns roam the ranch along with quarter
horses, goats and sheep, all 
ready to
lend their talents to the acting profession. Near the rear of the
village is a two room adobe building which houses the John Wayne
Museum. Here we found all the promotion stills taken during the
filming of the movie along with a large assortment of candid
shots taken during the production. As the movie is one of my
favorites, I found the set shots of John Wayne and Richard
Widmark talking or resting between scenes, most interesting.
Excluding 
the Alamo, the list of movies and other
productions which have been filmed here goes on for a while. Many
I had never heard of, but "Lonesome Dove" did catch my
eye. The list runs from the Roy Rogers show, to a video
"Tougher then Leather", by Willie Nelson. The set is
not done yet, the movie "Jericho" starts filming here
next month. During the season, the Village produces several
performances and gun fights each day for the tourists' pleasure.
I encountered 
one of the men who works for the Village as I
wandered around the town. He takes part in many of the
reenactments that are staged there. He has starred in a number of
films that have been done there as well. He bills himself as a
"Cowboy poet" and, as such, has taken part in many of the
events featuring cowboy poets and/or cowboy poetry. His name was
Dave Crowe and we talked at length about how he had come to be
where he was in his life at this time.
In this picture you see Lynn trying out his new Mavica camera. He
has a camera similar to ours, but a newer model. Digital 
cameras are a
lot of fun and afford you the ability to take a lot of pictures
without a lot of expense since they take their pictures on the
same floppy disk that you use in your computer.
Unfortunately, as this was the off season, we were not able to
see any of the reenactments but a different experience was
available. The strange, almost eerie feeling as I walked down the
center of the street of a ghost town, and pictured Clint Eastwood
riding toward me on a dusty horse as tumble weeds blew across the
street, and the sun beat down on my face with its withering
effects. Ah, what can I say, I'm a romanticist. (Sighhhhhh)