Menger Hotel (Downtown San Antonio)

"In an old and storied state occupied by the ghosts of a colorful and bloody past, one might think that the title 'Most Haunted Hotel in Texas' would be a tough one to live up to. With some three-dozen spirits identified in it, however, give or take a few, the sprawling Menger Hotel has a strong case for making this claim. These reportedly include the ghosts of conquistadores, Indians, Texian and Mexican soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Alamo, cowboys who drove cattle on the Chisholm Trail, a land baron, a U.S. president, a murdered housekeeper, a 'lady in blue,' and a little girl who died by misfortune. As anyone investigating the site quickly learns, the mundane and supernatural histories of the hotel are inextricably linked and span the centuries." 

That is the first paragraph of my chapter on the Menger Hotel, a beautiful San Antonio landmark that has been welcoming guests, and enticing the spirits of some of them to stay indefinitely, since 1859. At right is a picture of the original lobby of the hotel as it appears today. Below is a picture of the current lobby, added during one of the hotel's many expansions. At bottom is a photograph of the Menger Hotel as it appeared in 1865, the last year of the Civil War. 

Treue der Union Monument (Comfort/Kendall County)

"One of the strangest, bloodiest, and most heartbreaking episodes in the saga of a violent state took place during the Civil War and has been known since among most people as the Nueces Massacre (a dissenting minority of people who applaud or are indifferent to this tragedy somewhat disingenuously refer to it instead as the Battle of the Nueces). A memorial to this terrible event, known as the Treue der Union or 'Loyalty to the Union' monument, can be found in the historic Hill Country village of Comfort. There is every reason to think it might be haunted by the spirits of those whose deaths it commemorates and whose remains it marks." 

That is the first paragraph of my chapter on the Treue der Union monument that will appear in Ghosthunting San Antonio, Austin, and Texas Hill Country. It is one of about 30 sites that receives feature treatment in the book, along with about 40 that are more briefly covered in an appendix of Additional Haunted Sites.