Menger Hotel

The Menger Hotel is a historic hotel located in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. It is located where the Battle of the Alamo happened.

William and Mary Menger opened the Menger hotel in 1859 in San Antonio’s Alamo Plaza. The plans for the hotel arose through the popularity of William Menger’s brewery. The Mengers sold the property in 1881 to the Kampmann family. William Menger had emigrated from Germany to America in 1847. Menger settled in San Antonio and resumed his previous trade as a cooper and brewer. With his German roots Menger brought beer to San Antonio. He opened the Menger Brewery in 1855 on the battle-grounds of the Alamo (now known as the Alamo Plaza). In 1858 the Mengers hired an architect, John M. Fries, who would complete the two-story fifty-room hotel. Up until this point most businesses in San Antonio were boarding houses and there were few breweries. The Menger hotel opened in February 1859 and became an overnight success.

The Menger Hotel was built in 1859. William Menger hired John M. Fries to be the architect of the hotel and J.H Kampmann to be the contractor of the hotel.

The hotel also withstood the trials and tribulations brought on throughout the time of the family’s ownership. The Mengers witnessed the exciting events that led up to the Civil War and also experienced the turmoil of the Reconstruction in the South. As the Civil War began gaining steam in southern Texas it brought many Army soldiers to San Antonio. The large amount of soldiers stationed in San Antonio during this time created a large need for boarding houses, which the Menger’s happily provided rooms to the soldiers. It is known that famous Army men such as Sam Houston and Robert E. Lee stayed as guests in the hotel. Once the Civil War began the Menger hotel did very little business and it was a struggle to maintain the business during this time. Given the charitable nature of the Menger family they decided to put the hotel to use to aid in the war effort. Due to the slow service and hard to come by help the hotel shut down its guestrooms during the war, however they maintained their meal service in order to feed the officers and soldiers of the war. The hotel also offered space for medical care of wounded soldiers. Once the war ended in the south the hotel was quickly back in business. Once again proving that the Menger’s hotel had made a name for itself in San Antonio.

Unfortunately, after a little over a decade of turning the Menger Hotel in San Antonio’s finest, William Menger died in 1871. However, Mary and her son Louis William continued to run the hotel and brewery. Mary quickly ran an announcement in the local newspaper letting San Antonio know that she would still carry on the business and her husband’s death “would cause no change in affairs” within the hotel or brewery. Mary was quick to go about business as usual and she made plans to further enlarge the hotel to continue to service the huge influx of guests she was still receiving. She bought neighboring land in order to achieve her goals of adding additional rooms to the hotel. In a one-year period Mary hosted more than 2000 guests in her hotel and on one night alone the hotel housed 165 guests. Her success was undeniable despite the death of her husband. Mary helped the hotel achieve great success. On February 19, 1877, the first train steamed into San Antonio, which further contributed to the growing success of the hotel. This allowed for a higher volume of travelers through San Antonio and it began to further promote the growth of the Alamo Plaza. Because of its growth Alamo Plaza would become the location of San Antonio’s first federal post office which opened in 1877. The hotel offered a mail chute on each floor that allowed guests to simply slip mail into the chute and it would be collected and then taken to the post office to be mailed. Mary was aware that the hotel was lacking in the latest technologies such as bathrooms, proper water closets or bells. She quickly took it upon herself to make the necessary adjustments to the establishment and by 1879 she had gas equipment installed so the hotel could have its own source of gas for the gas lights that were used. Even though Mary and her son Louis maintained the hotel to the best of their ability, Mary was becoming too old to take care of it and her son was not interested in taking over thus the decision was made to sell the hotel to its original contractor Major J.H. Kampmann.The Hotel was sold on November 7, 1881 at the price of $118,500 which in today's currency would round to $2.8 million. Kampmann also bought all the furniture in the hotel for $8,500 or $203,000 in today's currency.

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