ALAMO RANCH
There's something just a little bit disorienting about driving
onto a remote 18,000-acre ranch and suddenly catching sight
of the Alamo, looking for all practical purposes the twin of
the real deal
in San Antonio. You know that someone, somehow, had to have
been caught up in a grand dream for this to be here.
At age 88 Virginia Shahan runs the ranch and Alamo
Village. In an interview at the village's office and gift
shop, she recalled how the idea of making movies in a big way
started in Brackettville.
"My Dad bought this ranch in 1925," she said. She
met Happy in college at Baylor University in Waco and "transplanted"
him to the ranch near Brackettville, 120 miles west of San Antonio
and 30 miles east of Del Rio on the border. They were married
in 1939. He was mayor in the 1950s, when the Fort Clark military
base closed down, and people started talking about attracting
movie production as part of an economic development effort to
offset the lost jobs.
They heard about the search for a filming site for Wayne's "Alamo"
and were able to attract the location manager out to take a
look. She said the deciding factor was the expertise of a short
local craftsman named Chato Hernandez in adobe construction,
learned from WPA projects in the Depression.
CAN YOU BUILD AN ALAMO?
"Wayne looked down at Chato," Mrs. Shahan recalled,
and the very tall movie star asked Hernandez if he thought he
could build an Alamo. "Chato replied, "Mister Wayne,
do you think you can make a movie?"
Wayne was a frequent visitor and sometimes resident during preparations
for the movie and the filming, a period that lasted about two
years. "I found him to be a very ccompassionate man, a
very thoughtful man," Mrs. Shahan said. "Wayne said
he always enjoyed coming here because he could relax."
There were battles over budget, to be sure. She said that her
husband always had the idea that the set should be built to
last, that it could attract more movie production to Brackettville.
"He was trying to bring industry into the country,"
she said.
Mrs. Shahan took over after Hap's death in 1996 and has quickly
learned the business. "It taught me," she laughed.
"Just don't believe everything you hear -- or first put
your money where your mouth is. I've loved every bit of it.
... I haven't had time to get old."
As longtime Alamo Village hand Rich Curilla tells it, Mrs. Shahan
still says her husband was "the biggest dreamer she ever
knew."
Curilla has been fascinated by the Alamo era in Texas history
since he was a 7-year-old boy in State College, Pa., watching
the old Davy Crockett television series. Now 57, he was a teenager
in 1960 when Wayne's Alamo premiered. He saw it 13 times over
a 6-month period.
An old toy replica of Davy Crockett's Alamo, complete with soldiers,
is in a display case in the John Wayne Museum here. If you look
closely, you'll see where it came from - "Property of Richard
L. Curilla." He moved here in 1988, and holds a variety
of jobs, including staging the Wild West shows presented as
an extra attraction during the peak tourism season.
No one here talks about a competition with Disney's new $90-million
historical epic that opened on April 9, 2004, just an opportunity
for renewed interest in the Alamo Village.
BUILT TO LAST
The Brackettville replica of the 1836 Alamo is impressive,
and even the period town built to be old San Antonio has complete
buildings -- no false fronts. The Alamo replica was built to
be historically accurate, but the town set is an invention.
By the Alamo Village's own count, it has hosted more than 200
productions over the years including movies, television shows,
commercials, videos and other shoots, most notably Jimmy Stewart
in "Two Rode Together," Dean Martin in "Bandolero,"
Willie Nelson in "Barbarosa," and the hit miniseries
"Lonesome Dove."
When Disney's new $90-million historical epic finally opened
on April 9, the Alamo Village marked the occasion with its first-ever
outdoor showing of the John Wayne version on a 20 by 40 foot
screen.
"It started out to be a small event," Tulisha Wardlaw,
Hap and Virginia's daughter, said. "Well, we've gotten
such a response that it's a major event." (The Wayne movie,
by the way, is readily available on VHS or DVD, in case you
couldn't make the trip).
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