It’s still pretty much the Old West in San Antonio.

In the Western movie classic “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Jimmy Stewart played Ransom Stoddard, who got credit for shooting the villain. But the fatal shot was actually fired by the character played by John Wayne.

Ransom Stoddard finally confessed to a reporter named Maxwell Scott. But after hearing the story, the reporter threw his notes into the fire.

“You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?” Stoddard asked.

“No sir,” the reporter replied. “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That practice has been good business in San Antonio for years, as legends are reprinted and retold to become cherished as true. Here are eight favorite local myths, recalibrated with the permission of enlightened editors.

Myth #1: Clara Driscoll saved the Alamo.

When what we call the Alamo was saved, Clara Driscoll was two years old.

But it depends on what you mean by the Alamo. The old Spanish mission church most everyone considers to be the Alamo was purchased by the State of Texas as a landmark in 1883, when Clara Driscoll was a child. In 1902, the adjacent privately owned remains of the mission convento, later known as the Long Barrack, were seen as an eyesore amid the modern development on Alamo Plaza. So the convento was to be razed for a park to look nice for a hotel planned a block behind it.

Then pioneer historic preservationist Adina De Zavala, a stern-minded schoolteacher, was introduced to the vivacious young Clara Driscoll, daughter of a wealthy rancher. The two decided that since more of the fighting at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 took place in the convento rather than in the church, the convento was the real Alamo. Therefore, the Alamo was in danger of being torn down.

Ultimately, Clara Driscoll advanced funds to buy the Alamo/convento, and was repaid by the state a year later. Thus she saved the “Alamo.”

Myth #2: San Pedro Park is the second-oldest city park in the United States, after Boston Common.

This is an especially pervasive myth these days, given enthusiasm over efforts to improve the creek that rises in the park. The most plausible explanation is that many years ago someone traveled to Boston, heard that Boston Common was established in 1634 and came home to report that San Pedro Park, established in 1729, must therefore be the nation’s second-oldest city park.

No one from here, apparently, ever made it to St. Augustine, Florida, where the Plaza de la Constitución was established in 1573, making Boston Common, not San Pedro Park, the nation’s second-oldest city park. A quick visit not to Boston but to the Trust for Public Land’s website reveals that among those coming next are New Haven Green (1641), Charleston’s Washington and Marion squares (1680), New York’s Battery Park (1686) and Jackson Square in New Orleans (1718).

San Pedro Park is, at best, the 10th oldest city park in the United States.

Myth #3: Chili spread throughout the United States thanks to the huge popularity of the San Antonio Chili Stand at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

This one is a particular favorite among foodies and cookbook writers, who, like fans of San Pedro Park, have been quoting each other about it for years. It took a California author named Gustavo Arellano to prepare a history of Mexican food and to wonder, in 2012, why no contemporary reports of the Chicago fair ever mentioned such a chili stand, and why no one took a picture if it was so popular. Anyway, he found, by 1893 it had already been 10 years since chili recipes had spread from coast to coast.

First mention of such a chili stand was traced to the 1920s. Once the myth was printed, everyone believed it. But a San Antonio chili stand at the Chicago World’s Fair never existed.

Myth #4: The San Antonio Conservation Society was organized to save the San Antonio River.

But the San Antonio River had been saved 10 years before the Conservation Society was organized. The society was formed in 1924 to save the 1859 Market House, which was torn down anyway. Then the group began its triumphant effort to save Mission San José. In the 1950s, the society swung in against serious threats to the by-then-existing River Walk. At that point someone decided to list saving the river as the group’s founding achievement. Pretty soon, like the chili stand, everyone believed it.

A society president was later quoted as having said, “Well, if it ain’t true, it ought to be.”

Myth #5: Fort Sam Houston is the birthplace of American military aviation.

San Antonio’s first military flight occurred at Fort Sam Houston in March 1910. Visit the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and see “the world’s first military airplane,” flown at Fort Myer, Virginia, in August 1908.

Myth #6: Will Rogers said San Antonio is one of America’s four unique cities.

This catchy phrase was even the theme of a national promotional campaign for San Antonio a few years back, and was prominently attributed to Will Rogers. Sometimes Mark Twain gets the credit. But neither humorist said it; it was the publicists who were pulling our leg, never citing an authoritative source.

The origin of this one comes from a syndicated column in 1926 in which Will Rogers wrote, “I have run into a good many pleasant things on my jaunts but the other day I hit San Antonio, what used to be before Progress hit it one of the three Unique Cities of America.”

A lot can get lost in translation.

Myth #7: San José Mission’s Rose Window is a memorial to sculptor Pedro Huizar’s sweetheart, Rose, lost at sea on her way from Spain.

National Park Service studies suggest the window was completed in the 1770s and would have been designed by artisans sent up from Mexico like those who crafted San Jose’s classic Baroque church facade.

A carpenter and surveyor named Pedro Huizar, untrained in sculptural techniques, did work around the mission, but he arrived from Mexico 20 years or so after the window is believed to have been finished. The alternative version of the story suggests the window was named instead for the New World’s first saint, St. Rose — Santa Rosa — of Lima, Peru. Her feast day is celebrated on Pentecost, when priests would have displayed consecrated communion bread through the window to throngs outside.

Huizar partisans would argue otherwise, and this remains one of the favorite legends associated with the missions.

Myth #8: The word maverick came from a rancher named Sam Maverick who refused to brand his cattle.

There’s no end to the variations on this one. As many people seem to have said he didn’t brand any cattle as those who said he branded every stray he could get his hands on. But he wasn’t a rancher, he was a San Antonio lawyer and major landholder who happened to own some cattle on the side, and gave strict instructions that they all be branded. Still, a lot of them weren’t, and they became known as mavericks. The word went into common use and has gone viral as a branding name worldwide, a unique legacy of Texas ranching.

San Antonio author, historian and former publisher Lewis F. Fisher’s books include “American Venice: The Epic Story of San Antonio’s River,” “Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage and Chili Queens, Hay Wagons and Fandangos: The Spanish Plazas in Frontier San Antonio.” His newest book, “Maverick: The Adventures of an American Name,” will be published by Trinity University Press in September.

COMING SUNDAY: Paris Hatters marking 100 years in business.