Episode 4: The Myths and Legends of the Marsh ⚔️⭐️🐎

History isn't just dates on a page; sometimes it’s a buried secret or a legend whispered across the marsh. In this episode of the Hangout Podcast, we’re heading to the Battle of San Jacinto to chat with Andy and Pamela from the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield and the Texas Historical Commission.

We’re diving deep into the soul of Texas history, covering everything from the tactical mysteries of 1836 to the high-stakes engineering of the present day.

What’s on the Agenda:
✰ The Battle of San Jacinto
Gritty tales from the 18 minutes that changed the map of Texas forever.
✰ Legends of the Graves
A look into the storied resting places across the grounds, exploring the lore of those who remained on the field and the stories that keep their memories alive.
✰ Moving a Titan
A glimpse at the massive, complex process of relocating the Battleship Texas for its historic restoration.
✰ Family Days at the Frontline
Discover the upcoming events at the San Jacinto Monument designed for all ages, from interactive living history demonstrations to hands-on activities that bring the myths and legends of Texas to life for the next generation.

Listen now to uncover the secrets of the Lone Star State!

A huge thank you to both the San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield and the Texas Historical Commission for providing information, content, and videos for this podcast episode.

To learn more, please visit:
✰ San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield: https://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/
✰ Texas Historical Commission: https://thc.texas.gov/historic-sites/san-jacinto-battleground

"The soil of San Jacinto is not merely earth and grass; it is a repository of a singular, defiant spirit. Here, the past does not sleep—it remains restless, etched into the very horizon where the Republic was born."
— T.R. Fehrenbach, author of Lone Star

-----
Looking for a fresh way to fuel your day? 🥤✨
This month’s Dishin' with Destiny segment is taking us over to Center Street Nutrition! We’re getting a taste of their vibrant energy teas, protein-packed shakes, and the community-focused heart behind this local favorite.
Whether you're looking for a post-workout boost or just a colorful pick-me-up, you won't want to miss what they're blending up right here in Deer Park.
Check out the full segment to see what's on the menu!

Like, Follow, Share, and Subscribe!

Thank you from the Visit Deer Park Division of the City of Deer Park

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hey everybody, and welcome to the Hangout Podcast. I'm Caitlin Bluejacket.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

And I'm Elliot.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

And today we have two wonderful individuals that we get the privilege to meet with. We have Andy Smith and Pamela Kwame. Yes. So we're we're very fortunate to have these guys here. They're with the THC, the Texas Historical Commission, and the San Jacino Battleground or Museum, or all of the above. What is like the official title? St.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Battleground State Historic Site. We also have the San Jacino Museum and History there. Private nonprofit at the San Jacino Museum and Battlefield Association. So Texas Historical Commission as the state entity is the public aspect. The private aspect is the San Jacino Museum and Battlefield Association. And the two collectively managed the site.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Okay. So when did y'all so I know that y'all were kind of over what was it, Texas Parks and Wildlife at one point?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We were. So the overall complex is what we used to call it when the battleship was there. We had Texas Parks and Wildlife was the administrator, the state entity that administered the site since about the 60s. And so we managed all three of the sites: the monument, the battlefield, and the battleship. And that was up until 2019 when those assets were transferred. The monument and the battlefield were taken over by the Texas Historical Commission in association with the San Jacino Museum and Battlefield Association. We've been operating in the monument since it opened in 39, 1939. So THC and the San Jacino Museum and Battlefield Association took over the battlefield or battleground and the monument. The battleship was transferred or stayed with Texas Parks and Wildlife, but the uh Battleship Texas Foundation took over operation and they, of course, since moved it to Galveston and is going to be there.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

So we're battleshipless.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So with Texas Parks and Wildlife being over the battleship, is that just because it's in the waterways or there's a number of reasons the ship was donated in 1948 to the state of Texas. So the state of Texas had to put an entity in charge.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Ironically, I guess, initially that was the Battleship Texas Commission, which was a pseudo-private foundation. They operated up through the 80s. And then Texas Parks and Wildlife took over. Texas Parks and Wildlife large agency has many, many resources. The state did not feel it was appropriate and weren't sure if they could technically transfer it to a private entity. So they just worked up an operating agreement whereby the Battleship Texas Foundation operates and maintains the battleship, and Texas Parks and Wildlife is the overseer and handles the money and beak they helps them with. It really was. It's been there. We we don't know any different. So yeah, it was a major process to transfer it out and move it away. But that really triggered a lot of what we're doing now in restoring the site to its 1836 appearance. It's really hard to describe the Battle of San Jacinto with a big battleship looming in the background. It throws a lot of people off. I mean, our tagline is real places telling real stories. So the real story we want to tell is the Battle of San Jacento and how Texas gained her independence here at San Gacento, here in Deer Park, where it all started, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And talking a little bit about San Gacento Monument and the battlefield, let's talk a little bit about San Giacento Day. It's coming up. Anything special planned for that?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Absolutely. So San Jacinto Day is part of our San Jacinto celebration that takes place pretty much the whole weekend around that anniversary date of the Battle of San Jacinto, which will be April 21st. On that day, April 21st, we have a ceremony on site. We fire cannons and there's speeches, and it's a lovely ceremony. The weekend prior to that, April 17th and 18th, we'll have our public events. On the 17th, it's a school day. So we open up to homeschool groups, private schools, public schools to book a reservation slot to come to the site. It is a free admission. You just have to arrange your buses to get to the site. Once you're here, there on the site, you can participate in dozens of the living history demonstrations that we have outside for the kids to enjoy, do a craft, and what have you. And then the following Saturday on the 18th is our San Jacinto celebration. That is the big public day event where we have our reenactment that's done twice that day. We have food vendors and local vendors coming through. Again, all of those living history demonstrations we have for the school day will also be available to the public on Saturday. There'll be lectures from a number of Texas history scholars inside the monument. The event itself on Saturday is free, but we do still charge admission to get inside the museum that day. Okay. But it is our big event of the year and a big draw for the public, and we look forward to welcoming hundreds, thousands of people.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

And you know, Pam is done and her team have done so much work to get this. And y'all might remember our San Jacena Days in the Past. They were, we call them festivals. And it was we did one reenactment, we brought a bunch of people in, we had a bunch of vendors. Uh, but since we've transferred to THC and brought in a really robust education team, we've really spun it around and added that that school day, which we think is so valuable. Really like to support the community by having that. I mean, we feel like every student in Texas should come to San Jacinto. So why not give a one big day where we have a lot of activities? We bring in reenactors from technically all over the world. And we can have upwards to a hundred reenactors out there doing various living history demonstrations. So we we're hoping to get close to 2,000 school kids on that school day, which is really exciting. Last year we had over a thousand. So it's a really good thing for the community, we feel. And then the San Jacena Day itself, you know, we used to do this one big reenactment at three o'clock. Everyone tried to get there. It's just a mess. And so we split it up and made two of that same reenactments throughout the day. So you have two opportunities to come and visit. We've added the lecture series, which is so nice. Not just nice for the educational opportunities, but you can go inside and sit in the theater for a little while instead of being out in the hot sun sometimes. Yeah. So it's uh really exciting, and I can't emphasize how much Pam and her team have really elevated uh the offerings we have for those type of events and throughout the year. We offer things every weekend, but the same cent a day two-day event is really, really our hallmark event. And yeah, so excited. We get we used to get almost 10% of our annual visitation on that one day or those two days. So uh we're really trying to spread people out throughout the year, but we still are always gonna have that big fun self-fanship.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, for sure. I know uh we actually have a booth on the uh the school day out there. So it's it's really cool to uh see the kids come by and sometimes they'll ask us questions about history. Sometimes they just want the swag. So if you're out there watching and you're part of that group that's gonna come out that day, stop by or say hello and enjoy all the festivities out there that day. So absolutely. Thank you guys for that for sure. I don't know, it's great. It's uh our our favorite time of the year, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, yeah, for sure, yes. So I know y'all have an illumin illumination event as well that y'all just had that this year.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

We did. We do that every other year. It's just a very and just the the the story behind uh fields of honor is what we are calling it. And we've done it for three, three years every two years. So we started, what would that have been? 21, 23, 25. The idea behind it is, you know, we often don't highlight how much of a memorial and sacred ground Singerson is, but there are a number of individuals buried there, and it was ultimately where many, many men and women sacrificed their their lives for Texas to become Texas, right? So a few years back we were approached by a few gentlemen that had this idea. They were looking at some of the Civil War battle sites, and and one of them in particular does a when they lost, when their battle took place, and they lost a lot at that battle. So they decided every year to honor that by putting out luminaries, which are basically a candle in a paper bag, and they put them out to represent each individual that fell at that site. So we took that idea but elevated it, obviously, because we're Texas and everything. That's right. So we felt that uh we wanted to honor every Texan that had paid that ultimate price, that sacrifice. So we put out 22,000 luminaries that represent Texas individuals that that paid that price, uh, that died in combat, died in war, starting with the Texas Revolution. So that number is obviously growing, sadly, daily, but every two years we adjust that number and we put out those candles to represent service members. And we we set out for one night and let people drive through. And it's I I mean if you haven't had a chance to go through it, it is it's pretty amazing. It just you know, you don't make a corner and you'll see a field of you know five thousand candles, and it just kind of puts a little bit of that that sacrifice it makes it seem a little bit more real. I mean it's really exciting that you remember it.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

I know we went out and we volunteered that very first year, and it's just the magnitude of like it gives you like a sense of like oh wow, like each individual bag was a person for our independence and fought for Texas history in general. And when we were putting out the bags and stuff like that, I think City of Deer Park was like in one specific field, and y'all had fields everywhere of all different types of volunteers, and it took us all day to put out those bags.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

And when you finally saw everything light up and just how how beautiful it was, it it really put it into perspective of like this is Texas Pride, and this is exactly why we do what we do and why we're so proud, you know, to call ourselves the birthplace of Texas, too.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

It is amazing the community support for that event. We had, I think the first year we had over a thousand volunteers. Subsequent years, we've had hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. A lot are from Deer Park, off King Mountain Home, a lot of the industry and the community around here, the FWs, scout groups. There's just a really strong desire to come and feel that feeling, you know, because there's nothing like placing that candle and just taking a moment to realize that represents a life. Right. That's blood that was spilled for you to be able to do this. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. So it's really that to me is the the greatest aspect of the fields of honor, is just all the community that comes together to set it up. I mean, it's you don't often get a lot of people working together, and like you said, it's all over the place. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And you get all those people working together for that one single honor recognition. It's it's just amazing. It really is a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

It's an event that does not happen without our volunteers. So we appreciate everyone and anyone who comes out. And if anybody is interested, we'll be doing it again in 2027.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

So well, and the volunteers and the community, Deer Park supports it. So I mean, someone's got to buy the candles, someone's gotta buy the bag.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Feed the feed the troops when they're out there uh putting all those candles out, right? For sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

So when does the planning start happening for that event?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Well, we almost immediately after the event, we'll do a recap and go through and and you know, do our pluses and minuses, what went right, what went wrong, what we can improve on. So we really are almost constantly. I mean, between the you know, we have basically our three signature events. The fields of honor is every two years that honors every Texan that is given ultimate sacrifice. We do in the fall, our fall, Feindango, which is a big event that we're trying to highlight the history of Texas in the 1830s that wasn't battle-related. Now, a lot of people love the cannons and the and the and the muskets and all that, but there's an equal amount of interest in how people ate, how they dressed, and just how you lived in the 1830s. And I think that's where we really get people engaged, is you know, we talk about, hey, you gotta eat. How did they eat back then? You gotta get dressed, how did they get dressed back then? So we we try to immerse people in what it was like to be eating in the 1830s because yes, the battle is important, obviously, but there's a lot of context around our site and that time period that really plays into why the battle planned out. So in the fall, we do our our non-war 1830s Living History event, and then in April we we do our big reenactment and celebration of San Giuseppe's Day. So between those three events, we're almost always in the planning. You know, that's just those big events. We also have fun run, we just got done with every year. We do around Independence Day, and then any number of activities, which Pam can probably go down a long list of things we do. But yeah, we're almost always in planning mode for those three events. Uh we're we're pretty much luckily a lot of the things we do overlap. So, you know, ordering restrooms and you know, that kind of stuff is just we pretty much have it on auto. Yeah. A lot of logistics that goes into that. Yeah, yeah. It is, it's a the site was not necessarily designed to have that many people there at one time. So there's a lot of logistics to try to get people in safely parked so they can enjoy the experience. Because if you can't get there, you can't get parked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

What's the point, right? Well, speaking from experience, I mean it you guys do a really good job out there keeping everything, you know, organized and run really smooth. Like, you know, there's not a whole lot of parking out there, but when you go out there and see all the cars, how they are parked, and just something that small, it makes it easy to get in and out, and it makes you want to go back the next year because you know, you don't have to worry about little things like that. You know, for us with the tree lighting event, you know, we have a lot of logistics that we're going through right now with that, and even last year, and you know, that was one of our biggest concerns. You know, if people don't have a place to park, are they gonna show up? Exactly. And you guys out there do a really good job of that. So thanks for that.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Something we've been working on. Yeah, we're always fine-tuning it. You know, y'all know, weather around here can be very, very contentious. Yeah, and if we get a lot of rain and we have some issues with parking and all that, like you would. And the tree line is one of those fun events that we like to come and help. I know.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Uh it's been a couple years now at least. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

We all do the little cornhust dolls, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah, like little activities for kids and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I think we did the cornhust angels this last year.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Yeah, this well, the past two years we've been doing cornhusk angels. Okay. Um, and then this past year we also added a uh weaving ornament so they can weave that and then take it home and decorate it or just hang it as it is.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

But yeah, yeah, we're surprised that y'all do that. We you know, we've often wanted to have a Christmassy or holiday type program, but we just haven't really developed it. So it's really nice to have y'all as our next door right there. Yeah. We can go and help and do some art, live in history, and add to your event. Yeah, yeah. For the community at a whole, I mean, that's everyone's looking for something to do around Christmas. It's just a great event to have.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

I know that was one of their main objectives that they wanted to keep with the tree lighting was to have as much historical representation of Deer Park and and the surrounding area and everything like that. And so we're very appreciative of y'all coming out and doing that. And I know Susan always has like little reenactor people to reenact the history of Deer Park and stuff like that and tell the stories around the campfire. And so what y'all provide is is just an added benefit to the all of that because y'all are, you know, a part of our history. Sure. And we we love it. And I think the kids love it. We we never get to walk around because we're always out of booth, or we're running around or we're on a golf cart, whatever. But we yeah, we do appreciate everything that y'all do for us as a city as well, because you know, it it's a huge part of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

So well, I think we're so tied together. I mean, it's I I don't know if you can think about Deer Park without thinking about the monument in the battlefield. And I say with the battlefield, I don't think you can think about it without thinking about Deer Park. So I really love the partnership we've worked in. We've worked together for many years. It's always been a pleasure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Yeah. We're in this together.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. There you go. Absolutely. Strength in numbers.

SPEAKER_04 17:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Well, let's kind of pivot a little bit and talk about maybe what y'all's roles do. I know I've known Andy for a while and and I have met you before, but I I don't think I know fully what you do. And so I'm I I think the public would like to know too.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Sure, yeah. So I'm the lead educator at the San Jacinto Battleground. I lead a team of myself and four other educators to provide the educational programming at Battleground. That can run from anywhere between our daily van tours to these school field trips that we accommodate throughout the year, uh, creating new content and new programs to offer on the battleground and at the museum, like our audio tour that was just released a few months ago, running events. We also have our monthly programs that continue uh to roll as the months go on. We also are very active in outreach opportunities, both to community events like the Dear Park Christmas tree lighting, but with other events with our uh sisters sites throughout the THC organization as well. So we are a very busy team of five, but we're very passionate about what we do, and we're happy to provide a multitude of offerings for uh just about any sort of field of interest at the battleground. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

And I can't uh emphasize enough how much Pam has transformed. I I know y'all remember we it used to be that the monument we we had our big events, and that was about it. We had a fun run, we had celebration, and there wasn't a lot else. I mean, it's great, it's beautiful, there's fabulous exhibits, ride the elevator, all of that fun stuff, but there was no real interactions. Pam came aboard, hired up a team, and has done the outreach. I mean, we have programming every day. I mean, doing van tours anytime you want, any day of the week, pretty much, other than Monday, Tuesday. So Wednesday through Sunday, you can come and and ride a van tour around the site and get a brilliant dive into history. Uh, you can come out almost any weekend. And one week in a month, there's Family Day where we have activities focused on kids and bringing families in. We have demonstrations once a month. I mean, it's just it never stops that she's always at it. She just kind of went over that audio tour. Man, that was an amazing thing. We've been working at that for a year plus, and now we have an audio tour that's free. You come in and buy your ticket, you can get your audio tour. Right now it's set up for kind of the monument, and it's English and Spanish. Free. A free audio tour in English and Spanish. I just don't know where else you can get that.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

The majority of our additional programming like that is free with purchase of admission, of course. So the van tour is going to be free if you're interested. The audio tour, the monthly programming that we have, like family days every first Saturday. The children have free admission with purchase of adult admission, and we have additional programming with the craft that the kids can take home, you know. During our cool weather months, we're just getting out of those. At the end of the month will be our canon demo that we have every last Sunday. Every I have it written down. Sorry. We also have firearm demos every third Saturday during those cool months, which would be November to March. And then when the weather is a little too hot to tolerate being outside for too long, we move those, we move demonstrations inside. Of course, we're not firing cannons and and muskets inside the monument, but we are offering additional educational demonstrations and things like touch tables. You can, you know, hold replica guns and see what cooking was like back then. But we'll bring all of that inside the monument during our warmer months, which is about May to September. But yeah, all of those additional monthly offerings, even the daily ones like the audio tour and the van tour, we try to keep them at at least for the time being, uh, free to the public with purchase of admission, just to add to that experience that they get on site.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And I'll add that free is partly, you know, the state of Texas being able to, you know, our goal is to get as many people engaged. We don't want money to be a barrier. So but it is also helped by So like Deer Park that contributes to our programming to allow us to be able to subsidize, if you will, and allow the public for free. So the celebration is very expensive for us to put on, but with support from folks like y'all and Deer Park and others were able to not pass that cost on to the public, which you're really thankful for. One of the big ones touched on the school groups, but we are have ongoing grants so that all Title I schools coming can come free. They'll have to figure out their transportation, but we are not charging them any fees to get into the museum itself. So that's a free program. Thanks in large part thanks to grants and and and donations from individuals and groups that help us maintain that free program, which is really one of the pillars we want to stick to. I mean, we really want as much as possible. This belongs the battlefield monument belongs to the people. We're lucky in that we get to be caretakers of it. But the last thing we want to be is gatekeepers. We we want to make sure anyone can come and experience it in any number of ways, whatever they're comfortable with, as often as they can for as little money as possible. I mean, we do have to keep the doors open, we do have to pay salaries, so but wherever we can, we're gonna do our programming for free if at all possible. Well, thanks to y'all's help in a lot of cases.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah. That's great. I know we run a monthly um subscription, not a subscription, but a publication online during the spotlight. And you guys always send the information to me about different van tours and things, and I'll get online and I'll see all the different things for the month. And I mean, there's just so much to do, like you said. You know, how do you guys keep everything in order? You know, I mean, it's gotta be a large task, right? You have different things going on, and I'm sure one week is just, you know, you're flying by and everything is great. The next week you're like, oh my god, like what's going on here? So talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

It takes a lot of planning and an organization for sure. Yeah. Uh luckily I do have my staff, and so we're we've just recently been able to come up with team sort of sub-specialties. Um, it's not on them to do everything, but to at least make sure that their little area of the team is covered and gets done. So I we have one of our educators, Chris Lise, who is in charge of scheduling and organizing all of our outreach. We have our other educator, uh Sophia Garza. She takes care of our school field trips. So they're booked through one of our administrators on site, and then it's put on our calendar, and then she organizes our team and our efforts to see those field trips planned and conducted accordingly. We have Bailey Brantley, another one of our educators, who does all of our online content, our online scheduling, graphic design. She's really amazing at all of that. She does a lot to get out those monthly calendars that we send out to organizations such as City of Deer Park and many others. And then we have David Guzman, who's our fourth educator. He does a lot of our adult programming and our online content as well. He's working on revitalizing our online blog right now and does a lot of scholarly research with that. And also spearheads our efforts to organize our lecture series, which is uh quarterly. We have a Texas scholar come to the monument and give an hour lecture. So we we all have our own individual pieces of the pie, and then that man that allows us to keep everything as orderly as we can. There are some flip-ups occasionally, and we all just accept it with grace and move on.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

And our motto is about it later. Uh our motto is simper gumby, always flexible. Like that's you know, having a really good invention. She has really good organizational, gets everyone in their line. Yeah. But you know, we always get surprises and last minute days. So we always stay a little bit flexible, always have a little bit left just in case.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

And we'll also have just great supportment on site with our site maintenance who helps us run a lot of our demonstrations, administrators like Andy who are willing to roll up their sleeves and help us with our education as educational programming as well. There's other frontline museum staff who step in when you know we need somebody in the elevator because they're low on chaperones or something. So it's it's really amazing the dynamic that we have as a staff at the monument to really just devoted to our mission and the job that needs to be done and do our best to support each other wherever we can.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah. Yeah. And when we have the opportunity, bring in volunteers. Yes. It is so vital.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Please volunteer at the monument.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Watch me. Organizations like ours just do not survive without a lot of volunteer support. And it can be, you know, like grants and the funding and all that, but real important it's boots on the ground. You know, we could not do our celebration without our volunteers. We could not do fall fandango without our volunteers. Our our staff is great, but those are just too big for them. So we're always looking for home.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

I've got a job for you.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

So it's it's really critical to align all those pieces together, and Pam does an outstanding job of keeping it all running.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Awesome. Very cool. I I like the uh the idea of having, you know, just so much compiled into one month, especially, you know, a historic site, you know, when Caitlin and I volunteer and go out there and do different things, you know, whether it's San Jacino Day or we go out there and take B-roll footage and you know put it on an Instagram story or just a number of things that we do. You know, I often find myself thinking about, oh, that's where they do the bird watching, or this is where they do the van tours. And it's just so cool, you know. There's just, like you said, there's so much to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

You wouldn't think there'd be as much to cover in a battle that lasted only 18 minutes, you know. Yeah. But you know, you you really branch out and and you start thinking about, well, in those 18 minutes, what were they wearing? What what were they feeling? What were they hearing? And and it just snowballs into everything that you can cover. And it's there's like I said, just a little something for everyone as far as things to be interested about and to to learn about when it comes to the battleground, to you know, frontier Texas in the 1830s.

unknown 28:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

The land itself, I mean, you know, we we are we are where we are, you know. I mean, it's we're not the battleship Texas that could just float on down someplace else. But dude, we're a battlefield, we don't go anywhere. So no matter what has happened around us, no matter how much the world's changed, we're still St. We're still telling that story of the 18 minutes that changed the world. We're still there and trying to do everything we can to bring people out with the hope that they'll get a little bit of that history. Now we do know with like the birding or the bicycling, most people aren't necessarily coming for a history lesson. But while they're there, we might be able to. So we do try to diversify our programs. I mean, we do laser focus on the history. That's our job, that's our mission. But we are conscious that we are a beautiful green space in the middle of one of the most industrialized places on the planet. And there are any number of people that just want to come out there and look at the birds, look at the trees, have a picnic, sit in their truck, eat their lunch, just get out of the I mean, I don't know how many of the local folks that work in the industry in Deer Park and around us are taking their lunch breaks and and choosing to come out to St. Cacinto to sit in the shade of a tree.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

I've done it before.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

I know, it's you know, it really can be it really can make your day. Yeah, you know, we all have our jobs, we're all working. Not everyone's lucky, like me and Pam, to work at San Jacento. But most of the rest of y'all out there slaving away and they and nine to five. Um, you know, just get out and just escape. Yeah, I mean you can there are spots at San Jacento where you can get and you can honestly forget everything around you. You don't even actually see some of the stuff. Um and it's just you know, there's you I don't think we appreciate how much that green space helps all of us. Uh whether it's just walking around or just looking, just sitting there, just get you back to nature, right? It's uh what do they say? Boots on the grass. No, uh feet in the grass, feet in the grass, right? Just ground yourself a little bit, right? Yeah, I wouldn't recommend bare feet.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

They're uh a lot of critters, but I know that drive down into the the monument. Y'all y'all did some resurfacing, I think, of the gateway that's right there. And it's really nice because you you drive through all of this industry, right? And then you find yourself in like this little pocket right on the corner, right before the ferry, you know, to go across the waterway. But you have you know the monument over there, which the monument is great. It is what it is, right? It's beautiful, and it's yeah, it's very beautiful. You have your little reflection pond, I'm not sure what y'all call it. And then on the other side, y'all have the cemetery. Is it called a cemetery? And and then even down like the drive, you know, you can sit out there. I've seen people fish out there. I don't know if they're allowed to do that, but they are okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

It's actually a really popular city.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

You can watch the barges come in, and and I know didn't the MV Sam Houston actually pick people up out of there?

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Yeah, MV Sam Houston is the tour boat for the Port of Houston that does tours of the ship channel, and normally they're out of like the turning basin, and it's a free program, but there is an alternate where they pick up and drop off at St. Justin. So it's usually private tours, you know, you have to schedule with them. But we're actually working with the Port of Houston to maybe expand that.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

So stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

That's great. In our future, we might have more work. One last two last week. And you mentioned Text Dot and the Road. Well, you mentioned the road, but yeah, Text Dot is one of our huge partners. I mean, we are a state agency, Text Dot is too. So it's a very common sense partnership. But they I mean, you don't want to talk about work, but resurfacing the roads they did. They also uh spent over a million dollars in habitat restoration. So basically, they uh we've been working with them for years. They help us mow shred uh twice a year to kind of restore our prairies. Um but they put together a project to clear a lot of the um evasives and uh a lot of the the trees that aren't supposed to be there that are growing along the marsh prairie transformation area to kind of clear that up. I don't know if you've noticed, but we opened it up so now you can actually see different vistas throughout sites throughout the site.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Not only has it beautified the site and being able to clear it out and have so many more vistas, but it's also been very important educationally as we go through the van tour to explain the, you know, now that you can actually see, there's a particular area on the site where we uh start driving east, and it's this transition from the tall grass prairie to the marshland. And it follows sort of the path of the Mexican retreat. And so interpretively, as educators, we're able to then say, as you see that almost seamless transition, you can just put yourself in the mindset of these Mexican soldiers who are fleeing for their lives. Texans are caught on their heels. And in a matter of steps, they go from sheer footing to being stuck in the mud and mud with the marsh to help people process what that might feel like as they're visually seeing it. And it's a view that you we didn't have before Text Doc came through and cleared that view for it.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah, that's that kind of restoration. It's constant. That's every week, every week, every week. They put in I think in 2025, 6,000 plus prairie plants. Wow. And now multiply that by 25 years plus, and we've put thousands and thousands of native plants back into the prairie through their efforts. And that's gonna ramp up too as as we as we really get into our big capital project to restore the battlefield, we're those numbers are gonna shoot through the roof.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Or through the soil.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

So precinct two, I believe, also just opened that that park that's right over there, right outside of y'all's fence line.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yeah, we can border ride once again, Memorial Park is yeah, it's a great little thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

How many times a week do y'all eat at Monument Inn?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

No, it's all this as well. That's for sure. Yeah, you know, too much of a good thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:05

There have been plenty of lunches though where I'm like, you know, those stuffed jalapeno poppers, I think it's gonna hit that spot.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

I would say hungry. Uh we've probably recommended people go there more than we have eaten there ourselves, but we do try to get there fairly often. It's hard to beat, right? Yeah, it is. The view of two, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:25

I think that's one of the Laporte restaurants that we advocate the most for because it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And you know, we had the St. Jacena Inn on the site right where by the Battleship Earth forever, and then the Monument Inn opened up and they were competing through the 80s. I remember going to both.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

So we we always encourage people to go out there and do a day trip, and we're always like promoting you guys. And anytime people call and they're like, hey, we don't know what to do, we have a bunch of kids.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Where do we go? We don't want to spend a lot of money, but we want to have a fun time. And the monument is always someplace that we always recommend because there's there's so many great like tourism groupings there. I mean, you can take a ride on the ferry, you can go drive around the monument grounds. Y'all have many like trails that you can walk down for outdoorsmen. And I think even like some radio people come out there too, right? We do, yeah. I think my grandpa probably did that. He used to take us out there all the time. He was super, super, super into Texas history and all of that. And so my earliest memories are going in there and doing going up the elevator and doing the lookout and all of that stuff too. And but yeah, we uh we always try to encourage and and recommend you guys to people so that way people can go have fun.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

I appreciate it. We yeah, there are any number of opportunities. The last time we had them out, the longest contact was they spoke someone in Australia. Wow, yeah. I mean, it's amazing. They've been doing that for years, it's a lot of fun. And I I didn't know anything about it, but it's just really exciting. It's like I see those antennas go up, but I'm always so who have you talked to who just that's what they're trying to do. They have these days where other people around the world are on the radios and they're trying to talk, and and the goal is to get the longest uh communication. And I think that's one of the longest I've ever heard of for year to Australia. Yeah, it is that is wild. Yeah, just an antenna they had in the truck and they pop it up and it's pretty much what about Pokemon Go?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

You still have to do that. We do that a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

We do that, we have a lot of people doing that. There's all kinds of college.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

Yeah, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

I know one thing that a lot of people like you mentioned fishing, that's uh one of them. I have a closet full of broken drones that people thought for Christmas, take it out, and they didn't exactly know what they were doing.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

So I'm sure with all the industry around you too, there's like a there's lots of legislation against that.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Yeah, so that's you know, all kinds of activities. Anything you can think of, people are cool.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, one of the things I think about out there the ghost stories. Oh y'all have any kind of stories?

SPEAKER_03 38:17

None that I've seen. Apparently, if you talk to some of our maintenance guys, they'll they'll break it down. It's like the there's three different types of all these things, but yeah, but no, not I mean, it's a battleground and a lot of people died there, so it's within the realm of possibility, but it's nothing that I've borne witness to.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

I I don't know what it is. I've worked there almost 20 years. So I've been there day, night. I haven't really felt any kind of you know I'm not saying there's not or anything like that. I mean, I've been out there at two o'clock in a morning, you know, moonless night, dark, hear the coyotes howl, and five mouth mosquitoes. But I wasn't that there was no supernatural scary going on. I don't know, maybe it's all spirits aren't as upset. I I don't know. And we tried over the course of time to honor maybe that kept the ghosts from getting so upset. Usually, you know, when you think about ghost stories, it's usually something horrible that happened, which we did have something hard magic, but I don't know. I don't know. I mean we do have inquiries quite often of people coming out and wanting to what's one of like the craziest stories that y'all have heard from people.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

Oh, maybe not the craziest, because I don't think it's caring, but I think the most I've heard is just like just random noises. And I mean it's it's an old building, the monument that could just be you know, clanking on the elevator as it's an old elevator. So I I don't know if I've heard anything much wilder than that.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

No, I really haven't either. You know, there's usually it's like a sense or feeling. Like I said, we've not I don't think there's been some sightings of Mexican soldier pass. I I just don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

I don't know if it's and really it's just you out there dressing.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

We do do a grave like candle tour of our cemeteries. You mentioned earlier, you know, on the on the what would be the west side of the site, if you're headed toward the ferry on the left, was is that's the original park, if you will. In 1907, it was opened as the first state park in Texas. That land was acquired in the late 1800s, that original 10 acres, and it's centered on that Brigham Monument where notes where the Texans who lost their life were buried. But there's also a number of other cemeteries over there. We don't really know the full scale of them. Some are possibly so you had the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, and those nine gentlemen were buried around that time period, some a little bit after the battle because they died of wounds. Not immediately. The Mexican soldiers are mass graves, we don't know where, but the little township of San Jacinto popped up right at Lynchburg, right in that area, and so they started plan burial plots adjacent to the Brio Monument, um, as the community cemetery. Well, well, the community grew and there were individuals that couldn't afford plots, so what's referred to as a Potter's Field happened around adjacent to those other two cemeteries. So that went on until San Jacinto Township was kind of abandoned in the early 20th century. And then in the late 60s, early 70s, we moved De Zavala's cemetery over to that side, too. Now none of the bodies, just the grave markers. Okay. So now we have De La Civala, which Lorenzo de Zavala was vice president of Texas. He had his property right across the channel, basically where those concrete plant is, right across from us. That's where his, but with subsidence in the area, that cemetery especially was inundated, going underwater. So we moved it over. So we have that cemetery, we have the Brigham Texian Cemetery, we have the St. Centa Inn or St. Jacinta Township Cemetery and a Pottersfield all right there.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

So every October, November, around that time, we run a public program called Tales of the Tombstone. That is one that people sign up for and pay special for. It happens around sunset, um, and it is candle lit. We we try to keep those candles lit. But you're you're right by the bayou and that wind can be a little little tricky. But we go into some of the stories of the uh people who were buried there, honoring the the three various burial locations. Okay. Um, or locations of remembrance in the case of Zavala, where where the where we have those on site. We talk about the some of the histories of the the that we know of of either of the people at San Jacinto, the battle, uh, the people at the township, or the people we remember at the Day Zavala courtyard.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Okay. Yeah, and there's another cemetery on site that is actually still privately owned. And they are it's right in the middle of the battlefield, if you will. And they actually buried someone in the last month or so. So they had a recent burial. It's getting pretty full, but they are it's one acre right in the middle of the site. Habermills.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Habermills. Is that I guess on like the is it the east entrance? Is it over there on the east entrance?

SPEAKER_01 43:34

It's actually between the reflection pool and that road going that runs the east. Okay, you know, from what we call gate one.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

I meant west.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Never east.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

South of the reflection pool, west of the monument. It's right up on uh we have a mode path to it so people can go out. It's it's again not necessarily related to the battle, uh, but As part of our acquisition. You know, we started with that 10 acres. By the time we opened fully in 1911, we had about three hundred and fifty acres, but now we have about thirteen hundred. So a lot of industry, a lot of individuals have have either given or sold the land to us. The Haberbills were the owners of some of that land post-cordics. And their agreement in transferring the land was they would keep that family cemetery. And so we we honor that and we keep it maintained and it's a lot of a lot of memorialization, it seems that I think people just blow past. They don't even realize that it is a cemetery. It is a sacred ground. We often almost jokingly say that. Just because it's it's it it's forgotten.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

And even beyond the battle, yeah, beyond the battle, the the monument itself is meant to be a memorial to the Texians who fell not only at San Jacinto but throughout the Texas Revolution. And so, I mean, first and foremost, the site is there to be a memorial, in addition to the many other things that it is for our our visiting public.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Yeah, and the monument itself is largest war memorial in the world. I mean, it's bigger than the Arc de Trump, it's bigger, you know, go down the list, taller than the Washington Monument. Um it is the largest war memorial in the world. It's uh pretty amazing. I don't think we realize how I mean yes, the battlefield is amazing, but that monument is a a structure like no longer on the Facebook. It is a one-of-a-kind, it is a national engineering landmark, and the way they constructed it was literally and figuratively groundbreaking. Basically, they developed this kind of footing. So they poured a concrete foundation for that monument, and it took 55 hours to pour that full foundation, which was at the time the longest continuous concrete pour that had ever been uh undertaken. But that that footing that basically holds that monument in place in this really clay silty soil that we all have foundation problems, right? Everything just sinks, it shifts and is not because of that big footing. So that was the model now for all these coastal clay, and you think about it, around the world, there are any number of large buildings built in this kind of environment. Couldn't do that before this monument was built, and they developed that kind of methodology. So now you're now able to build skyscrapers in the swamps, like Houston, like uh Hong Kong, you know, all these other places around the world where they just, you know, there was not that good footing. Not you you can't get to bedrock here, right? And you can really to get things not to move structurally, you got to get to bedrock. Well, they created their own bedrock with this concrete pad.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

You can learn about that and more on our audio tour in the monument for your permission.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

We do need to go back out there and probably take some B-roll footage for this specifically because I'm realizing we also haven't been out there in a little while. Yeah, and because I know the elevator was broken for what felt like an eternity. And so I'm glad that y'all get it.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Oh yes, that's been fixed. That's one of our biggest Yeah. It it it has been functioning without much issue for quite a while now. We did have some issues. We we replaced pretty much everything. We reralled the motor, we replaced all the cables, replaced the controllers, but in that process it was up and down, up and down, literally and figuratively. Um trying to get troubleshoot it. It's an old elevator. Yeah, and we just have the one. Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

So um can you walk all the way up to the top if you wanted to?

SPEAKER_01 48:09

It takes a long time. The quickest I've ever done is about 15 minutes. And if you if you do a like a tracker activity, it will give you about a half a mile. Okay, okay just to walk up it.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Does it make your calves cramp?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

It makes your calves cramp. I will say that it actually hurts more walking down than expensive. Oh I mean, you will you will feel it definitely walking up, but there's it's more of the quads and the hamstrings coming down. That really gets your calves. Yeah. And it's what is it? 832 steps. 832. 832 steps. I mean it's about 50 stories. We don't let the general public do that unless it's an emergency. Gotcha. The only time we really let any public do it is the Deer Park Fire Department actually in honor of September 11th. They do a climb every year around September 11th.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

I didn't know they did that.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yeah, they it's kind of a personal thing. Um it's nationwide around September 11th. Almost all the fire departments try to do kind of one of those climbs to kind of commemorate their uh fallen brethren. So we it's not advertised, they just do it kind of for their own. So we really love having it out there. We don't walk with them, but we know you. I've had to do that more times than I'd like. With the elevators down, bringing contractors in, all the controls are up top. So for contractors to kind of figure out what's going on, they gotta go all the way up.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

And if the elevator's not working, walk in your own education and staff offices is on the third floor as well. So we are very interested in making sure that the elevator stays running. So we're with you, citizens of deer park. We want that elevator running at all times.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

But we have we've gotten, I think, I think off the wood. I think we've had uh probably our longest run of uh no outages on the elevator. Um we that's great. Over a year without shutdown.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Then watch, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna take a few walks because we're out there.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

We didn't edit this part out. Just forget this evening discussion.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

We're kind of coming to the end of our time now, but I wanted to see if there's anything else that y'all want to talk about, or do you have any fun questions you want to ask?

SPEAKER_00 50:32

I don't have any fun questions, just the one about the ghost stories. I think about that all the time out there.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

So the funny part is like we have more of the like what will eventually be ghost stories. We have all kinds of crazy stuff that just happens. Like, I don't know if you remember, I guess it was two years ago on our school day. So a school day to pull off the school day in the San Jacena Day, we bring in, like I mentioned, upwards to a hundred or more reenactors from all over. Most are from Texas, but they're all traveling in, so we we end up working with some of the local hotels, given the hotel rooms, but some camp out. Well, our reenactor that does Sam Houston, he camps out and he brought his horse. So they get there Thursday to set up so we're ready to go Friday, right? So they're basically there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and some don't leave it till Sunday just because it's busy and all of that. So he gets there Thursday, he has his horse. Somewhere overnight, the horse got loose. So in the morning, school kids are coming. We have Sam Houston, hey, where's my horse? Where's my horse? And so we're scrambling to try to find his horse. 1,300 acres, right? It's right. So we ended up having to get a drone, flying it, and we found his horse. His horse was in the marsh. His horse was in the marsh up to his chest in the mud. So we got to him, and uh, his name was Sonny. Sonny was the horse, and he was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.

unknown 52:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

So Sonny is in the mud. We don't know how long he's been in the mud. Somewhere around two, three o'clock is when Sam Houston thought his horse disappeared. We found him probably about nine o'clock.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

So he'd been in there, he was getting tired. Did you know Harris County has a large animal rescue division? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

We had donkeys with our neighbor. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yes. So Harris County has like two or three individuals that that's their responsibility for the whole county to help with large animals that have issues. So we called them. It took them a while to get out. So we we prepped and tried to get the horse. We actually got him almost out, and then he fell back in. Took us about four to five hours ultimately, but we were thankful we got the horse out safely, and Sonny and Sam got to uh visit the kids. That now the first half of the kids missed Sonny and Sam because we're otherwise preoccupied. Yeah, yeah. Who would have thought that? I learned all kinds of stuff that day. Um but yeah, I mean those are the kind of I think we get those instead of ghost stories. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

I mean, I think those are fun stories. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Yeah. Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

Never a dull moment comes in.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Never dull moment. Never a dull moment.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, thank y'all both for coming out and doing this. Tell Amy I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

She regrets not being aware.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

Uh we'll we'll catch her at the next tourism committee meeting today.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Maybe we can follow this up with talking about with her, talking about the what's coming, all the big projects stuff. There's a lot to that that I know we want to start talking about at some point.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

Right, right. Yeah. Once we move into the new visitor center, um, which is coming up in the next month or two, um, we are planning on actually having a full setup for the podcast. So we wanted to be kind of like setting with random parts in the room, things you can't see on camera. What you mean? I don't know what that is, but I'm not asking questions. We but yeah, once we get that all set up and stuff like that, we hope to like start doing this more often. Right now we're at once a month, but it'll be a lot easier for us to just kind of go in there and set things up, do special episodes and stuff like that if we wanted to do that. So the possibilities are endless, right? But we definitely want to have y'all back. I think it's important for us to have y'all at minimum once a year, just so we can like stay in the know. Y'all might be locked in at the April episode forever, though. Just because April is not the best time, then we can always limit time for Deer Park. Well, thanks for tuning in. Um, and we want to thank these guys very much. And if you need more information about the San Jacena Monument or the Battlefield or Texas Historical Commission, feel free to visit their website. I'll put links on the YouTube page. And if you haven't already subscribed to the Hangout Podcast, we'd love to have you as one of our regular viewers.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Yeah, until next time, guys. We'll see you around here.

SPEAKER_05 55:47

Hi everyone, welcome back to Dish Nour Destiny. This month's highlight is Center Street Nutrition. They offer a variety of drinks, such as my replacement shakes, loaded teas, and energy drinks, and a bunch of different flavors. So honestly, each time you go, you can try something new. I know when I went on my recent visit, I had the Daisy Duke. It had this watermelon crisp flavor and the sweet strawberry flavor. And it's very clean, zero sugar. It might not taste like it, but it is. But not only that, they have collagen, biotin, vitamins A through E in my drink as well. And it's about 100 calories, low carb, has some protein in it. So you get that boost without it feeling heavy. Between the energy and focus that you get from the drink, you also get a thermogenic blend. So it's a really nice pick-me-up. You know, if you're having a long day, I know when I got the Daisy Duke, it was recommended to me because I just walked in and I was like, hi, having a long day at work, can't focus, I'm tired. What can really help me get through the rest of the day? And they and I just told them what flavors I like, and they looked through their selections, showed it to me as well, and offered me the Daisy Duke. And it was super good. And I recommend that one if you haven't had it. It's it should be one of their specialty drinks. But it's a really good alternative. You know, if you're not craving coffee and you still need that caffeine, they'll customize a drink to your taste. If you need more caffeine, less caffeine, you want more collagen, more protein, anything like that, they'll customize it to fit you. But they also have good pre- and post-workout drinks. You know, if you work out or active, definitely a place to go. Or if you're just running errands out and about, perfect midday boost. I promise. But the atmosphere is very upbeat and friendly. I know I was a bit hesitant when I first were trying their drinks just because it's it's a, you know, it's a you want to eat healthy, you want to, you know, drink healthy drinks. And so I just had a lot of questions and they're very welcoming and will answer any question you have. And they have some seating there as well while you're waiting for your drink or you know, getting to know the employees. I know when I went recently, they were so kind and let me just film content there that for the podcast, and you know, ask questions about you know their drinks and what would be best for me. So if you haven't checked out Center Street Nutrition, it's definitely worth trying here in Drew Park on Center Street. And that's it for today's episode, and I hope to see you next time.