Menger Hotel

The Menger Hotel is an historic hotel located in downtown San Antonio, Texas, US, on the site of the Battle of the Alamo.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as a contributing building in the Alamo Plaza Historic District.

William and Mary Menger opened the Menger hotel in 1859 in what is now San Antonio's Alamo Plaza Historic District, which includes the Alamo Mission. 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, along with a contractor, J. H. Kampmann, to complete the two-story, 50-room hotel in San Antonio, Texas, which became a stopping point on the Chisholm Trail where cattle drovers could replenish their supplies while cattlemen sold and bought their livestock. Up until this time most accommodations in San Antonio were boarding houses, and there were few breweries. The Menger Hotel, opened in February 1859, served as a meeting place for cattle barons and was an immediate success; many cattle business transactions were made over the years in the hotel lobby. A marker in the present-day hotel courtyard commemorates the Chisholm Trail.

With the beginning of the American Civil War, a large number of Confederate soldiers were stationed at San Antonio, creating a need for more boarding houses to house them. The Menger family put the building in use to aid the Confederate war effort, and shut down the hotel's guestrooms. They kept the dining room open to feed military personnel, and offered space for the care of wounded soldiers. Once the war ended the hotel resumed full operations.

After a little over a decade of running the Menger Hotel, William Menger died in 1871. However, Mary Menger and her son Louis William continued to run the hotel and brewery. She quickly ran an announcement in the local newspaper that she would carry on the business and her husband's death "would cause no change in affairs" within the hotel or brewery. She carried on business as usual and bought neighboring land on which to build new rooms to serve the influx of guests. In a one-year period she hosted more than 2,000 guests.

On February 19, 1877, the first passenger train steamed into San Antonio, which further contributed to the growing success of the hotel. This allowed for a higher volume of travelers through the city and promoted the growth of the Alamo Plaza, which became the location of San Antonio's first federal post office, opened in 1877. The hotel offered a mail chute on each floor for guests to use—outgoing mail was collected and taken to the post office. Mary Menger was aware that the building was lacking in modern bathrooms, proper water closets, or room service bells, and made these improvements.

By 1879, Menger had gas lighting installed. Although she and her son Louis maintained the hotel as well as they could, she was getting too old to manage the business 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. It was sold on November 7, 1881, for $118,500.