2008 July 03 « doug – off the record

Ghosts in San Antonio

July 3, 2008 — dougpete

These are the things that make tourism and entrepreneurs so active. The concept of a ghost wherever you are headed. New Orleans is famous for it and it is a substantial business there. The setting is perfect for it with the graves above ground. But, San Antonio?

I stumbled upon this before we left for the NECC Conference. My favourite all time movie is John Wayne’s “The Alamo”. It’s in DVD format in the library. So, it was natural that I would do some internet research before heading south. There was the expected; the information about Travis, Bowie, Crockett, etc. and on one of the pages, there was a link to the Ghost Tours of San Antonio. Prominent on the tour is the Gunter Hotel. Hey, I’m booked at the Gunter Hotel! It’s away from the convention centre and had lower rates which was important. So, I read all about the ghosts of the Alamo and of the Gunter Hotel.

The Alamo part made sense with the famous battle and its ending. However, the grisly events at the Gunter were bizarre. See the links below.

So, it was room 636 which I had engraved in my mind.

We met a nice couple from Atlanta on the ride in from the airport on the shuttle. They were staying at the Gunter so I shared the story with them. At registration, there were two clerks and I stepped up and we registered for our room. 601. As we gathered our luggage, the gentleman came back to me and asked “The ghost room was 638, right? They put us in 636.” Gulp. As we got to the room, it turns out that 601 is adjacent to 636.

On the hotel elevator later on, I got on with a group of young men and pressed the 6 button. One of the guys said, “Oh you’re on the ghost floor”. Floor?

The evening was uneventful and off to bed I went. At about 2am, the smoke detector started to beep. It’s the beep that you get with a low battery. It wasn’t stopping so I called the hotel desk and they sent up a maintenance person. The smoke detector was high on the wall and required a ladder so it was necessary. Just like when you take your car to a mechanic, the beeping stopped while he was in the room. However, after 20 minutes of trying, he was unable to remove the cover but the beeping had stopped so we figured that it was just a bizarre battery thing, he left, and I went back to bed.

Half an hour later, the beeping starts again! I call the desk and he’s back and, of course, the beeping has stopped. I assure him that I’m not a whacko and that the beeping was indeed there. He called down to the desk to see if we could get a different room. Ah, nothing like moving rooms at 3:30 in the morning. But, the odds are that in a hotel of this size, we’ll be on a different floor. Right?

Wrong.

The new room was 634. But, our adventure stopped here. The beeping didn’t follow us. The new room was great; the hotel was very good hosts; and I’d go back there in a heartbeat. Judging by the lack of USA Today in front of 601 as I went for the free wireless in the lobby at 5am, the room was not occupied for the rest of our stay.

But, what a story. And, there are books about San Antonio’s ghosts in the gift store. That will be my treat to myself.
http://www.sanantonioghosts.com/pictures.html
http://www.angelfire.com/weird/DemonicsandHauntings/ghostsofgunter.html
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/TX-GunterHotel.html
http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publish/article_3123.shtml

In addition to the Alamo,

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/TX-AlamoGhosts.html

another supposedly haunted place that we visited was the Spanish Governor’s Palace.

http://www.alamocityghosttours.com/TheHauntedPalaceTour.html

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