The Alamo isn’t the only local historic spot that draws in visitors from all over.
Several hotels downtown do, too.
The Emily Morgan Hotel
Located on the corner of East Houston Street and Avenue E, just across from the Alamo, the building The Emily Morgan Hotel is in was built in 1926.
It was originally a medical arts building where more than 100 doctors and nurses worked in everything from dentistry practices to general practice to surgeries.
The medical arts building also included a morgue and crematorium.
In 1977, the building became the Landmark Office Building.
Seven years later, it became the Alamo Plaza Hotel, though a year later the name was changed to The Emily Morgan.
The hotel’s namesake was an indentured servant in 1836, owned by Colonel James Morgan, who became known as the Yellow Rose of Texas after helping defeat the Mexican Army.
After the battle of the Alamo, as the tale goes, Emily Morgan was “distracting” General Santa Anna in his tent long enough so that Sam Houston and his troops could defeat Santa Anna’s troops.
Today, the hotel is known as one of the most haunted in San Antonio.
“Most people think our ghost stories come from the Alamo, but all of our haunted stories come from the medical arts building,” said Kole Siefken, general manager of The Emily Morgan.
Siefken said he has never seen a ghost at the hotel, but they hear of ghost encounters from guests or staff about once a month.
“People open up their doors and say they’ll see a hospital scene, and then they’ll close the door and then open it again and it will be the regular hallway,” he said.
Siefken believes the ghosts at his hotel are like Casper. They’re all friendly.
The Menger Hotel
The Menger Hotel opened in 1859 and, with the exception of a period during the COVID pandemic, it is the longest-operating full service hotel in Texas.
The Menger sits on the opposite side of Alamo Plaza from The Emily Morgan along East Crockett Street.
William Menger came to Texas from Germany in the 1840s as a barrel maker and beer brewer.
He opened a tavern in San Antonio and quickly learned his patrons needed a place to sleep off the booze.
So he and the woman who would become his wife, Mary Menger, built a boarding house next to the tavern.
Its success led to the Mengers asking the city to build a full service hotel and open the Menger Bar, which was a replica of the House of Lords Pub in London.
“When prohibition hit in the 20s they had to close the bar, but they dismantled all the wood and they tagged it and they logged it in and they stored it,” said Garvin Oneil, general manager of The Menger. “After World War II, in the 60s, it moved the bar to its new location. But they erected all the panel like the original.”
While the hotel has seen its share of famous guests, perhaps the most well-known is Teddy Roosevelt and his recruitment of Rough Rider cavalry at the Menger Bar.
“A lot of people don’t know it, but the, Camino Real And the Chisholm Trail actually go right through downtown,” said Oneil. “So the cowboys and the cattle would come right past the Menger Bar. And the the story goes that he and his colleagues would sit at the bar, look for an appropriate cowboy, run out there and recruit them to be part of the Rough Riders.”
“And we’ve got a couple of bullet holes in the wood from when Teddy and a friend were a little over-served and doing target practice,” Oneil laughed.
Oneil has heard of ghost stories at the Menger, but he’s never seen a ghost himself.
Perhaps the oddest thing guests gawk at in the hotel today?
Pay phones, Oneil said. And, no, they don’t still work.
The Crockett Hotel
Directly across East Crockett Street from The Menger sits The Crockett Hotel, which dates back 115 years.
“The Order of Odd Fellows back in 1909 laid the cornerstone, which is located on the west side of our building,” said Patricia Santiago Larios, assistant general manager of the Crockett Hotel.
The fraternal order built the hotel for guests on the first four floors while the top two floors were for the group’s private use.
The central part of the hotel used to be an open-air courtyard but today its an enclosed atrium that still has the feel of being outdoors.
“A lot of our visitors come in and they’re like, ‘Oh, the Crockett is so original because the outside is inside!’” Larios said.
The Crockett, too, has its own ghostly tales.
“We did have some ghost hunters come to visit us. We were telling them that sometimes on our fourth floor, we have strange things that happen,” Lario said. “So, actually, while we were in the elevator, the elevator directed itself to the next floor up and then the next floor down all by itself, without us pressing any buttons.”
The St. Anthony Hotel
The St. Anthony Hotel, at the corner of East Travis and Navarro Streets, was also built in 1909 by a couple of cattlemen.
“They took a chance on San Antonio being more than just a dusty village. They believed it was going to be the grand city that it is today,” said Debbie Gonzalez, senior sales manager at the St. Anthony.
From the beginning, it was marketed as a luxury hotel.
Rooms went for $1.50 a night. Two dollars if guests wanted a private bathroom.
“The two cattlemen sold the property to R.W. Morrison. Ralph Morrison, who was an entrepreneur. He started the first railroad between here and Mexico. He had oil and gas money,” Gonzalez said. “And so he was the owner that made the hotel what it is today.”
To the left of the main lobby stretches a long corridor called Peacock Alley.
There are a few stories that may, or may not, explain the name.
“We (had) Peacock Military Academy in San Antonio and the cadets would come and strut their stuff and girls would come and meet them here,” Gonzalez said. “Also, there was a front desk manager, Mr. Peacock. So it could have been called Peacock Alley because of him.”
After a renovation in the 1940s, the hotel became the first fully-air conditioned hotel in the world.
When cocktails came into vogue in the 1950s, the St. Anthony Club became the place to see and be seen.
The club is also said to be the birthplace of Southwest Airlines.
“Herb Kelleher met with his partner, Roland King, sitting in these two chairs,” Gonzalez said . “And Roland said, ‘Herb, Texas is too big to drive around in. Let’s start an airline.’”
Fiesta has been part of the history of the St. Anthony for decades and is still a big part of its present.
“In 1936, this is where the Texas Cavaliers were founded by Mr. Carrington,” Gonzalez said.
Today, the Cavaliers use the hotel for their festivities during Fiesta and call the hotel their “castle.”
So, are there any St. Anthony ghost stories?
“We tell ghost stories lobby level,” joked Gonzalez. “Because I don’t believe anybody wants to sleep with ghosts.”
One bar within the St. Anthony is called Haunt, in honor of some of the hotel’s ghostly tales, and it serves cocktails named after those stories.
“Bartenders can tell you about the Lavender Lady, which was a ghost story in my era,” Gonzalez said. “There was a bathroom by the Cavalier room... and you could go into that bathroom and smell lavender.”
“You look under the stalls and there was nobody in there, but that fragrance was in there. You know, so obviously, the Lavender Lady was in there,” she said.
Omni La Mansion del Rio Hotel
From school to hotel, the Omni La Mansion del Rio has made quite the transition from its original purpose along East College Street.
In 1852, the Catholic Bishop in Galveston wanted to start a school in Texas and tapped four French brothers from the Marianist Society to do it.
“They came into Indianola, Texas, by boat from France and then here to San Antonio,” said Rusty Wallace, area managing director of the hotel. “They built a Catholic school for kids right here on the site. This room that we’re in right now was actually the headmaster’s office when the school was built.”
The room Wallace is referring to is now the hotel bar, El Colegio.
The school became St. Mary’s College in the 1920s and then St. Mary’s College of Law in 1931.
As San Antonio grew around the school, it became difficult for the campus to expand so St. Mary’s moved to the West Side.
“In 1966, the story is that a graduate of the school, a local lawyer named Pat Kennedy, was standing in the NIX hospital across the street. His wife was about to give birth to one of his kids,” Wallace said. “And he looked over at the site and thought, ‘that’d be a good place for a hotel.’”
Throughout the hotel, there are photos from the days of St. Mary’s, like a basketball team from 1919 or a bowling club from 1914.
“On March 1st, which is the day they started classes here in this building, we ring a bell here in the bar and serve a round of drinks for everybody,” Wallace said.
Even the hotel’s most well-known ghost story has a tie to the students who used to roam the same halls.
“The ghost’s name is supposedly Little Jimmy. They think he was a precocious young Catholic student,” Wallace said.
Little Jimmy is said to haunt what used to be the school gymnasium, which is now used as an event space at the hotel.
The ghost causes a hotel window to mysteriously and repeatedly crack.
“It’s the last window on the left,” smiled Wallace. “Although that window hasn’t broken in a year.”