Alamo

On the hallowed grounds of the Alamo, a shrine so sacred that men still must doff their hats before setting foot in the limestone chapel, Frank Buschbacher is digging for gold. For the last month, his team of excavators has delicately sifted through a gaping hole carved out of the plaza floor, an unprecedented treasure hunt somewhat akin to burrowing for riches underneath the Vatican.

Alamo Drafthouse, the quirky Austin, Texas-based theater chain known for its special events, theme movie nights and in-seat food and drink service, is expected to plant its flag in downtown L.A. Saeed Farkhondehpour , developer of the Medallion mix-use project, said Alamo recently signed a letter of intent to open a 600-seat, eight-screen theater on a vacant lot near the corner of 4th and Main streets. The theater would include food and beverage service and would open in the next 18 to 20 months, he said.

Harvey Weinstein has nothing on Chill Wills. Weinstein, long considered the king of the Oscar campaign blitz, might well have taken a page from the 1961 playbook of the veteran character actor's publicist. Hollywood at that time had never seen anything like the crusade Wills' publicity agent launched to get his client the supporting actor Oscar for the 1960 John Wayne epic "The Alamo." The Texas-born Wills had been performing since he was a kid and was the leading member of the Avalon Boys singing group.

Can a restaurant be too busy? In the case of Full of Life Flatbread in Los Alamos, Calif., the answer is maybe. That's because on weekend nights the place can pull in hundreds of people from all over the state and the world who are happy to wait in line for as long as two hours to get a taste of the restaurant's hyper-local, organic fare. Nestled in an idyllic sweet spot in the middle of Santa Barbara wine country, just off Highway 101 between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo, Full of Life is at the vortex of a well-traveled food-and-wine pilgrimage route.

A copy of the letter written by the Texas commander at the battle of the Alamo pleading for backup and pledging "victory or death" was auctioned in San Antonio for $299,200. The letter from William Barret Travis, one of four known copies, was sold along with a later letter that announced the defenders had lost the March 1836 battle, said Lauren Gioia, a spokeswoman for Sotheby's. The second letter was auctioned for $78,000. Both were from a private collection.

Re "Remember the Alamo -- but the Right Way" (Commentary, April 9) by Dagoberto Gilb: The Alamo's defenders were not simply a bunch of gringo invaders but, for the most part, were Mexican citizens -- Americans who had taken Mexican citizenship under a Mexican government program to encourage the settlement and development of Texas -- as well as a meaningful number of Texans of Mexican descent. Indeed, by 1835 there were more American settlers in Texas than there were Mexicans. Regardless of their ethnic heritage, however, the people of Texas were in rebellion against the dictatorial Mexican government of Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Mitchell Gaswirth's April 8 commentary "Remember the Alamo" captured many of my emotions about this war. I openly admit that I hate the Bush administration for what it is doing economically, environmentally and diplomatically -- and truly the worst is this war. But my heart goes out to the young people who have dutifully gone off because they have made the commitment to do so. I hope when they return they are treated better than those who returned from...

Inspectors found toppled chimneys and minor structural cracks Saturday in an area on the east side of San Francisco Bay rocked by two moderate earthquakes. The jolts, which struck along the southern end of the small Concord fault Friday night, measured 4.6 and 4.3 and were followed by several smaller temblors, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Remember the Alamo? Unless you recall it as the last stand of a multicultural Paradise Lost, filmmaker John Lee Hancock is sure you remember it wrong. "Whites and browns lived together," said Hancock, a Texas native, describing his home state's pre-revolutionary past. "It was really culturally diverse. People intermarried. There was very little racism." For one brief moment in the still-aborning 19th century, he believes, "Tejas, Mexico, was a very, very interesting place."

While Hank Tovar is correct concerning the upside-down status of the Texas flag in the Senor Naugles commercial (Calendar Letters, July 20), both he and the Naugles people are incorrect in assuming that the Star and Bars ever flew over the Alamo. The flag raised over the Alamo by its defenders was the Mexican tricolor with the Eagle-Serpent-Cactus crest replaced by the date "1824," commemorating the Constitution of 1824, which theoretically gave the Texicana self-determination.

For a one-horse town, Los Alamos, Calif. (population 1,890), has an impressive assortment of art galleries, antiques shops and tasty restaurants. The picturesque community, near the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County, also has two fun wine-tasting rooms that offer a breezy respite from those in nearby tourist-clogged wine towns. The bed The 1880 Union Hotel (362 Bell St.; [805] 344-2744, http://www.1880unionhotel.com ; rooms for two, from $105) was built in 1880 as a stagecoach stop — and it looks as if it hasn't changed much since.

The gig: Tim League, 42, is chief executive and co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas. The quirky 10-theater chain has developed a cult following with its special events, themed movie nights and in-seat food and drink service. The Alamo recently launched its own film distribution company and is expanding nationwide, opening new theaters in New York and Denver and eyeing locations in Los Angeles. Career change: After a two-year stint at Shell Oil in Bakersfield, League quit the engineering profession and opened his first movie theater.

Los Alamos National Laboratory managers sought to allay fears Tuesday that an out-of-control wildfire burning near its boundary might lead to the release of radioactive material. Although the lab stores low-level contaminated waste in thousands of metal barrels in a section of its 25,600-acre property, the Las Conchas fire is two miles away and extremely unlikely to reach the site, said Carl Beard, the lab's operations director. "I just don't see any scenario where the public is going to be impacted," he said.

— A 50,000-acre wildfire raging through tinder-dry ponderosa forest sent up towering plumes of smoke, rained down ash and forced the mandatory evacuation Monday of Los Alamos, home to the nation's premier nuclear weapons research lab. The Las Conchas fire started Sunday in parched, windy conditions in the Jemez Mountains, 12 miles west of Los Alamos. By early Monday, it had destroyed 30 structures south and west of town and forced the closure of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where scientists developed the first atomic bomb during World War II. The blaze stirred memories of a devastating fire in May 2000 that destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings.

Orbitz, one of the world's leading travel websites, is at the center of another pricing dispute — this time with the world's largest car rental company. Last year, the nation's third-largest airline, American Airlines, stopped posting its booking data on Orbitz after the two got into a dispute over fees that American had to pay to be listed on Orbitz. Now Enterprise Holdings Inc. has announced it is no longer doing business with Orbitz because of a fee feud. Enterprise Holdings, which operates the Alamo Rent a Car, National Car Rental and Enterprise Rent-a-Car brands, issued a statement saying it ended its relationship after Orbitz demanded "unacceptably high commission rates" and removed Alamo and National from the website and from its companion site, CheapTickets.

TODAY'S BOWL GAMES Military Bowl Maryland vs. East Carolina When: 11:30 a.m. PST. Where: Washington. On the air: ESPN. About Maryland (8-4): Outgoing Coach Ralph Friedgen earned Atlantic Coast Conference coach-of-the-year honors from the media after completing a dramatic turnaround, leading the Terrapins to eight wins after a 2-10 season in 2009. It just didn't save his job. Maryland was among the contenders for the ACC title thanks to the strong play of freshman quarterback Danny O'Brien, who completed 179 of 315 passes for 2,257 yards and 21 touchdowns with six interceptions.

August events--Due to a reporting error, the dates of David Crockett's residency in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., were incorrectly given in last week's Events column. Crockett lived near Lawrenceburg in the early 1830s, but died in 1836 at the Alamo. The living history demonstrations in the town depict the 1840s.

Re "School Panel to Vote on Sale of 36 Acres," Jan. 19. I wonder if the Simi Valley City Council and school board have really gone into the usage and sale possibility of the 36 acres on Alamo. That land has been set aside for schools, and it seems to me it will be needed in the near future. Numerous large, family homes are being built in the hills north of Alamo. The children who live there will grow and someday soon schools will be needed for them. What will happen if no land is available?

Two auto safety advocacy groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit Enterprise Holdings Inc., the owner of the Enterprise, National and Alamo rental car companies, from renting out recalled vehicles that have not been fixed. The Center for Auto Safety and Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety petitioned the FTC to stop the practice. They were joined in the petition by Carol Houck, the mother of two young women killed in the 2004 crash of a PT Cruiser rented from Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Los Angeles County public health and U.S. Forest Service officials have closed the Los Alamos Campground in the Angeles National Forest after a California ground squirrel captured two weeks ago tested positive for plague. The camp, between Gorman and Pyramid Lake, was closed Saturday afternoon and will remain closed for at least 10 days, said Jonathan Fielding, the county's public health director. Squirrel burrows in the area will be dusted for fleas, and further testing will be conducted before the campground is reopened.