05/01/2025
“On March 18, 1903, 22-year-old Clara Driscoll, DRT No. 375 and De Zavala Chapter member, put her money where her mouth was.
The likelihood that DRT could raise $75,000 to pay Hugo & Schmeltzer for the Alamo property was slim. A purchase option was available, and Driscoll considered the possibilities. Seemingly out of the blue, ‘Eastern parties’ surfaced willing to pay more money to option the site for a hotel. Timing was critical.
She made an offer of $500 to Mssrs, Hugo & Schmeltzer for a 30 day option on their property on the south side of the Alamo and fronting on Alamo Plaza. If she had not paid them an additional $4,500 by the end of that period, she forfeited the money. But, if she paid the $4,500, she would have a further option until February 10,1904, to purchase the 287-by-200 foot property and building for $75,000.
Young Driscoll spelled out her terms in triplicate. She would make a cash payment of the additional $20,000 under the proposed contract, with the $50,000 balance to be paid annually in installments of $10,000. Interest would be 6per cent, secured by a vendor’s lien on the property. She would take possession of the property six months after the date the deed conveyed, and Hugo & Schmeltzer wouldn’t owe her rent during that period.
Additionally, she wrote that ‘it is further understood and agreed that this property is to be purchased for the use and benefit of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and is to be used by them for the purpose of making a park about the Alamo and for no other purpose whatever.’
And that’s how a young woman with a checkbook became owner of the Shrine of Texas Liberty.”
Decade of Daughters, pp 40, 41.
2013 by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Austin, Texas.
