Why is San Antonio So Haunted?
At the Battle of the Alamo, the Texas Defenders were a rag-tag group of outlaws, rebels, and pioneers who had sought out the wild frontiers of Texas to make a life for themselves. This led to a fierce spirit of self-determination and the resolve to rebel against the re-annexation of Texas by the Mexican Army, led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
The Texas Defenders were spirited, even though they knew they were outnumbered. They sent out the call for help, but few came to their aid. The result was one of the bloodiest battles in Texas history and one of the key events in the history of the nation. The initial rout was bloody and cruel, no prisoners were taken, the messengers sent to rally support took stories of cruel deaths and gore lining the dusty streets of the town. Some came to help, but not enough. Soon all were dead inside the Alamo, and a great many more outside. Bodies were burnt in great piles of burning flesh, men stacked like cordwood, aflame. And if not engulfed in flame, then cast into the rivers to float away and poison the only water for drinking for miles around.
To describe much of downtown San Antonio as a graveyard is not too far from the truth.
The grizzly deaths of the brave soldiers of the Alamo eventually inspired people from across the state to join the cause of Texian Liberty and ultimately led to the defeat of President General Antonio López de Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto in 1836.
Add to this gruesome event the rough frontier town nature of the place and the stories of human loss and suffering begin to mount, and the ghosts are sure to follow.
From its time as a Spanish Mission town to the rapid growth of recent years, San Antonio has retained its quirky frontier nature. As Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park described it on a tour of the south, “San Antonio rivals only New Orleans in its odd and antiquated foreignness”. One foreign thing is the refrains of Texas German you might still hear around the city, from the heavy German migration around the start of the 20th Century.
The dead still rest underfoot in many areas of the city – pioneering men, women, and children whose presence can still be felt, especially late at night when the city is fast asleep.
San Antonio has another kind of nightlife, one that not everyone is brave enough to investigate. Let us guide you on this moonlight tour, and reveal the haunted past of San Antonio.