AUSTIN, Texas – The Austin City Council on Thursday evening authorized the renaming of one of the city's best known roadways.
- Manchaca Road will be changed to Menchaca
- Some say it will change city’s history
- Others want justice of Jose Antonio Menchaca
Council members authorized renaming South Austin's Manchaca Road to Menchaca road to "correct a mispelling." The change will take effect on Nov. 15.
Some feel that the mispronunciation is an insult to the memory of one Texas revolutionary, Jose Antonio Menchaca. The soldier and politician was honored after defending San Antonio and Travis County during the Revolution in 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto.
Opponents said the change would change the city's history.
According to the Facebook group Justice for Menchaca, the night after the Battle of San Jacinto a command staff took down the names of the soldiers who participated. The commander is believed to have misspelled every Tejano name because he didn’t speak Spanish. Therefore, Menchaca was recorded as Manchaca.
City officials conducted a survey on the name change last month with 83 percent of those surveyed being against the name change.