Especially Texan: Fiesta San Antonio

The first parade was moved a day ahead to accommodate the schedule of visiting President Benjamin Harrison, but it was then delayed for four days by bad weather. With the arrival of fair weather, participants in carriages pelted one another with flowers as they rounded Alamo Plaza. By 1895 an elaborate weeklong celebration surrounded the Battle of Flowers Parade, and the first queen was chosen. In 1909 the Order of the Alamo was organized, with John B. Carrington as president, to oversee some features of the carnival, including the election of the queen and her coronation.

The Battle of Flowers Association continued to coordinate the parade, as well as a children’s fete and a band competition, the forerunner of today’s Band Festival. The parade tradition lapsed briefly during World War I, but another tradition was started-the Pilgrimage to the Alamo. By the 1980s the Daughters of the Republic of Texas were sponsoring this event, in which participants march from the city’s Municipal Auditorium to the Alamo to hear the names of Texas men who died in the battle of the Alamo. The fiesta was not very old before the crowning of a king was added to the week’s activities. Before a King Antonio line was established in 1916, kings were chosen by the Spring Carnival Association, the Downtown Business Club, and the Chamber of Commerce. Early monarchs were dubbed Selamat (tamales spelled backward), Omala (Alamo backward), King Cotton, Zeus, and Rex. In 1926, when the Texas Cavaliers were organized by Carrington, the king began to be named from their ranks. In the same year Mrs. Alfred Ward of the Battle of Flowers Association founded the Oratorical Contest for college students, to encourage writing on some phase of Texas history.

State Book of Texas