Rock legend brings his Alamo collection to San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO — Phil Collins, the rock music legend who has been fascinated by the Alamo since he was a child watching a Disney television series about Davy Crockett, said he'll donate his collection of artifacts to the state shrine and will keep sending other historical items to the site as he purchases them.

Collins and Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson appeared together Thursday morning to announce the donation of the musician's collection, which he has kept in the basement of his home in Switzerland.

“I look at it every day. But nobody else was enjoying it,” Collins told reporters and about 300 people who gathered at the Alamo for the announcement.

Patterson said he shook hands with Collins at lunch in the Oro restaurant at the Emily Morgan Hotel about three months ago to seal an agreement to bring the collection to the Alamo. The Alamo staff and Texas General Land Office, which oversees the mission and site of a famed 1836 siege and battle for Texas independence, had talked to Collins about the collection for a year, Patterson said.

A reader thanks rock singer Phil Collins for his recent gift of his personal Texas Revolution-era artifacts collection to the Alamo. Collins says he has been fascinated with the Alamo since his childhood. A reader thanks rock singer Phil Collins for his recent gift of his personal Texas Revolution-era artifacts collection to the Alamo. Collins says he has been fascinated with the Alamo since his childhood. Photo: Julysa Sosa, For The Express-News Photo: Julysa Sosa, For The Express-News Image 1 of / 119 Caption Close Rock legend brings his Alamo collection to San Antonio 1 / 119 Back to Gallery

Collins said he is “kind of enjoying my kids growing up” and doesn't have much planned musically, aside from recent filming of a documentary about his former rock band, Genesis. But he said he's not through collecting items from the Texas Revolution of 1835-36.

“It's my intention to keep collecting, keep accumulating” items, then “ship it over here,” Collins said during a roughly 40-minute announcement and question-and-answer session with the media and the audience.

Collins said he supports a full interpretation of the Alamo's entire history, including its 1700s roots as the Mission San Antonio de Valero, where indigenous people lived under Spanish rule in Texas.

Read more about Collins' collection at ExpressNews.com and in Friday's edition of the Express-News.

shuddleston@express-news.net