Phil Collins Alamo Artifacts Arrive in Texas

On Tuesday (Oct 28), pop music legend Phil Collins delivered two large crates, filled with the world's largest collection of Alamo memorabilia, to San Antonio.

Phil Collins Alamo Artifacts Arrive in Texas | Time Warner Cable News

For more than three decades, Collins has gathered Alamo-era artifacts. His first piece was a horse-saddle receipt owned by Alamo survivor and mail-carrier John Smith.

Smith would later become San Antonio's first mayor.

"I started collecting and it gave me great, great pleasure," Collins said. "I just decided that at some point I was going to have to do something with it."

At dinner one night, friends suggested he bring the collection back home. He agreed with one condition.

"I was in town here to find a museum who would take the collection and my only stipulation was that it would all be on display," he said.

With items like Jim Bowie's knife, and Davy Crockett's gun powder pouch, the state has plans to build a permanent visitors center.

"All of it displayed. All of it at one time. The Phil Collins collection is what it will be labeled forever as," Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said.

The public will get its first chance to see some of the Alamo items within a few weeks.

Expect the visitor Center to be constructed within the next five or six years.

© Time Warner Cable News, by John A. Salazar