Alamo Village

Alamo Village is a movie set and tourist attraction north of Brackettville, Texas, United States. It was the first movie location built in Texas, originally constructed for and best known as the setting for The Alamo (1960), directed by John Wayne and starring Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and Frankie Avalon.

The set was built by James T. "Happy" 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 on his ranch in September, 1957 for Wayne, who had tried for years to make a movie about the Battle of the Alamo for Republic Pictures, before finally breaking away to form Batjac Productions. Filming began in August, 1959.

Originally the set was to be facades of the front and sides of the buildings. However, Wayne ran out of money and called a halt to construction. Shahan agreed to continue working while Wayne raised more money, if Wayne would agree to building full sets with four walls, floor and roofs. Wayne signed on to the deal.

The set includes a full-scale re-creation of the Alamo compound as it would have appeared in 1836 (the real Alamo is in the middle of what is now Downtown San Antonio and is surrounded by modern skyscrapers). The set also includes a representation of the village of San Antonio de Béxar of the same time period. The building of the set required over 1.5 million adobe bricks (which were manufactured on site), 14 miles of gravel road and a 4,000-foot runway.

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