San Antonio de Bexar was the political, military, and ecclesiastical capital of Mexican Texas, seat of the department government and home to a substantial civilian population living around Military Plaza and Main Plaza, with San Fernando Church, government buildings, missions, and an irrigation-fed ranching and farming economy along the San Antonio River. The old Alamo mission compound on the town's edge served as a Mexican army post and garrison. When Texian volunteers besieged the town from October through December 1835, ordinary civic and residential life continued amid the standoff, with residents, merchants, and soldiers' families present through weeks of skirmishing before Texian forces stormed the town and captured General Cos's garrison in a house-to-house assault. The siege and the town's broader civic function were inseparable, since the fighting centered on control of the plazas, church, and fortified houses that made up everyday Bexar. Today the site is embedded within downtown San Antonio, one of the state's most visited historic areas. Markers and interpretive signage around Main Plaza, Military Plaza, and San Fernando Cathedral commemorate the siege, and the surrounding area, including the Alamo, the four Spanish colonial missions, and the King William historic residential district, functions as a major heritage and tourism destination, drawing visitors to the same streets and plazas where the siege unfolded nearly two centuries ago.