City: Austin, TX

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (512) 974-3830

Address: 411 East Fifth St.

Description: This museum, opened in 2010, celebrates the life and times of Susanna Dickinson, the “Messenger of the Alamo” and one of Texas’s most famous historical women. Dickinson, the young wife of US Army artillerist Almeron Dickinson, and her infant daughter were the only two Anglo survivors of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. When the bloody siege ended, victorious Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna chose Dickinson to deliver a message to Texas General Sam Houston that further opposition would end in defeat as well. (Houston ignored the warning.) Susanna lived, married again and again—and prospered—for almost half a century after the infamous battle, bearing witness to and participating in Texas’s early Anglo history.Susanna and her fourth husband, Joseph Hannig, built this home in downtown Austin in 1869. Saved from destruction and moved to this new location next door to the O. Henry Museum, the structure is officially called the Joseph and Susanna Dickinson Hannig Museum. The permanent exhibit focuses on Susanna and her first husband’s participation in the Texas Revolution, her life in the aftermath of the Alamo defeat, and her later move to Austin with Hannig. A temporary exhibit, expected to remain into 2012, centers on the surviving wives and children of men who died at the Alamo. The museum is open Wed through Sun, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.