The Emily Morgan Hotel
San Antonio, Texas
I’m not going to pull any punches with you about the Emily Morgan. According to USA Today, The Emily Morgan hotel, located on East Houston Street in San Antonio, Texas, is the third most haunted hotel in America, and that wasn’t published by the paper to boost readership. It really is, very much haunted! But unlike the previous two hotels I’ve written about in Texas, the Emily Morgan didn’t start out as a hotel. It’s life began as something totally different...
Long before becoming a hotel, the building started out as the most advanced medical arts facility west of the Mississippi. This is of course, one of the reasons why there seems to be a high number of spirits and paranormal activity at the location, particularly on the 12th and 14th floors where a high number of occurrences and sightings seem to occur. There was also a crematorium on the 14th floor for the patients who did not have anyone to bury them. And of course, there’s the basement, where the old morgue used to be. It was a medical facility from 1924 until 1976.
In 1976 the building was converted into an office space and a year later, it’s recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Alamo Historic District. It wasn’t until 1984 that the Emily Morgan Hotel first opened it’s doors to the public. In 2012, the hotel undergoes a multi-million dollar renovation and joins the DoubleTree by Hilton family. And last year it was inducted into the Historic Hotels of America Organization.
As for your chances of experiencing something if you decided to get a room there? The 12th floor of the hotel had originally been used for medical operations back when it was a medical facility - and there are often reports of unexplained noises like what you would hear in a hospital, and the smell of alcohol and other disinfectants and both guest and staff alike have reported being touched by an unseen hand. On the 11th floor there is the ghost of an elderly woman dressed in a hospital gown who is regularly seen walking along the hallway in the middle of the night, weeping. There is also the sound of a hospital gurney being wheeled from one end of the hallway to the other, but when people have opened their door to investigate, nothing is seen.
Dropping down to the 9th floor, guests have reported unexplained events such as wine bottles sliding off tables, their toilet seats being violently banged up and down in the middle of the night and hearing loud noises coming from totally empty rooms. One the 7th floor, the dark shape of human figures have been seen walking on this floor and have been witnessed to walking through walls and closed doors. One report was that a guest had awakened late one night when all of the electrical devices in the room suddenly turned on, including the lights, which was immediately followed by a dark shadow gliding through the room and into one of the walls.
And on the 3rd floor there was a guest who claims that she was awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of humming and witnessed the ghostly apparition of a young girl sitting at the bottom of her bed, who asked the hotel guest if she would like to sing along. On the following night, the guest reported that once more she was awakened in the middle of the night, this time feeling as though someone had crawled into bed with her and was pressing up against her. She said that she was able to make out the impression on the bed quite clearly, but there was no one to be seen. On both occasions, the woman said she noticed a drop in temperature in the room.
And what of the elevators which are said also to be haunted? It’s quite natural for elevators to pick up faults, either mechanically or electronically which could be making them act or appear haunted. But the elevators at the Emily Morgan Hotel have been inspected over and over with no faults being found. It is strange then, how the elevators seem to make calls when they’re empty and persistently wish to take people to the 6th and 7th floor and back again, skipping past the floor button you pressed, then take you to the basement where the old morgue used to be - only to refuge to budge. Creepy!
The Alamo too, sits only yards away from the Hotel Emily Morgan and the Alamo is considered to be one of the most haunted locations in Texas. Some say that part of the hotel sits on hallowed ground, on a piece of land where more than 600 soldiers lost their lives, with General Santana ordering that the bodies me placed into piles and burned, including the bodies of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Surely there are a few spirits from that time in history to add to the haunting’s of the hotel?
BTW - If you don’t know who the hotel was named after, who Emily Morgan is - I think that if you look her up, you’ll find that she was at least in my book, a woman I look upon as a hero! Not just for Texas, but for everyone fighting against oppressors and oppression!
Have a great day everyone and God Bless
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