Musician and Alamo affectionade Phil Collins will be back at the Shrine of Texas Liberty today, but the unveiling of seven bronze statues, which will show what the Alamo has looked like across the centuries, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Brittany Eck with the Texas General Land Office says the artwork was commissioned by Collins.
"He didn't just donate his collection and walk away," Eck said of Collins. "He has been a proud supporter of the Alamo ever since."
Collins, like many of his English Baby Boomer contemporaries, became enamored of the image of Davy Crockett from watching the 'King of the Wild Frontier' on 'The Wonderful World of Disney' in the late fifties.
Singer David Bowie adopted his stage name in honor of Alamo defender David Bowie.
Collins, who once joked that he 'collects Alamo items instead of Ferraris' in 2014 donated his collection of Alamo memorabilia, the largest in the world in private hands, to the General Land Office, and it is the need to build a 'world class museum' to house the Collins Collection is one of the motivating factors behind the current, and very controversial effort to 're-imagine' Alamo Plaza.
Eck says the bronze statues will give visitors the idea of how the Alamo they see today has evolved over time.
"It changed from a mission to a fort, and then after the siege and the battle, the walls were torn down," Eck said.
She says the statues will also detail the building of the famous Alamo cupola, which has become a symbol of San Antonio, but which many visitors don't know was not in place during the 1836 battle. It was built later by the U.S. Army. which owned the Alamo during the years after the Civil War, as part of an effort to repair the church, which had been badly damaged during the battle.