Menger Hotel

Mary Menger was born Maria Clara Baumschlüeter in Hanover in 1816 and reached San Antonio with her mother on June 2, 1846; her mother died that summer. She married the butcher Charles Guenther in 1848 and ran a boarding house on Commerce Street, carrying it alone after his death in 1850. William Menger's Western Brewery, opened in 1854 beside her new boarding house, is considered the first commercial brewery in Texas, and its profits bought the block. Because she meant to welcome couples and families, the hotel plans included a ladies parlor and a ladies entrance.

What the plaque says

Menger Hotel William A. (1827-1871) and Mary Menger, both born in Germany, opened a boarding house and brewery at this site in 1855, when most local buinesses were still clustered around Main Plaza and Military Plaza. The popularity of the boarding house led Menger to replace it with a two-story stone hotel erected at the corner of Blum and Alamo Plaza in 1859. Mary Menger sold the Hotel in 1881 to J.H. Kampmann, the builder of the first portion of the structure. Famed for its excellent meals and beautiful patio garden, the Menger was San Antonion's most prominent hotel in the 19th century. It attracted many well-known visitors and was periodically enlarged and remodeled to accommodate more guests. Cattlemen such as Richard King stayed here during the era of the great cattle drives. Other guests included Generals U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and John Pershing; poet Sidney Lanier, writer O. Henry (William Sidney Porter); and performers at the Grand Opera House located across the plaza. Theodore Roosevelt recruited his regiment of "Rough Riders" for the Sapnish-American War at the Menger in 1898. Purchased in 1943 by W.L. Moody, Jr., the hotel was further expanded in 1966-67 to cover the entire block. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — steps away
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 0.2 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Antonio River Walk — 0.2 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 0.5 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• Barbed Wire Demonstration — steps away
• San Antonio Section, National Council of Jewish Women — steps away
• Pan American Round Table — steps away
• John Hermann Kampmann — steps away