The Daughters of the Republic of Texas had to go to court and were granted a 14 day restraining order so they can get in the Alamo.
The Daughters' lawsuit focuses on the collection within the research library, which was established in 1945. In the lawsuit, the group said it owns more than 77 percent of the collection, made up of some 38,000 items, including books, maps, flags, paintings, manuscripts and other artifacts used by researchers. The suit says that the items in question were donated to the Daughters — who began caring for the Alamo in 1905 — and that the donors wanted the items to be maintained under the group's stewardship, not the state of Texas.
The judge said the state agency is causing "irreparable harm" to the Daughters in the "potential loss of, and actual loss of access, control and oversight of priceless items collected" by the group.
The Daughters suit came shortly after Land Commissioner Bush announced that he was ending the group's management of the downtown San Antonio-Mission turned-fortress. The Alamo was the site of an 1836 battle during the Texas Revolution in which some 180 defenders were killed by Mexican forces. Weeks later, those deaths provided Texas soldiers with their rallying cry — "Remember the Alamo!"— that helped carry them to victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, clinching Texas' independence from Mexico.
