In downtown San Antonio, across the street from the Alamo, stands the Emily Morgan Hotel. Locals and travelers alike recognize the building for its architecture, location, and ghost stories. The stories didn’t begin when it opened as a hotel. They started long before that, when it was full of doctors, nurses, and patients.
But even that wasn’t the beginning. Before a building stood here, this site was part of the battlefield where Mexican forces stormed the Long Barracks of the Alamo in 1836. Over 600 men lost their lives in and around this ground. Some believe that history left a mark.
One Name, Two Emilys, and a Lot of Confusion
The Emily Morgan Hotel takes its name from a woman who almost certainly had no connection to the building, the city of San Antonio, or the story that made her famous.
Emily D. West1Texas State Historical Association was a free Black woman from New Haven, Connecticut. She came to Texas in 1835 under contract to work as a housekeeper for James Morgan. She arrived that December, on the same schooner as Emily de Zavala, wife of the future vice president of the Republic of Texas.
Five months later, Mexican forces captured West during a raid on New Washington. They held her with others as the army advanced toward Buffalo Bayou. According to a much later story, she was in Santa Anna’s tent during the Battle of San Jacinto and helped distract him. No contemporary source supports that claim. No officer mentioned her. No report described Santa Anna as unprepared.
The story first appeared in an 1842 journal entry by a British traveler who quoted an unnamed veteran. The story faded, then resurfaced in the 1950s when an editor published the journal with a footnote. That footnote sparked decades of speculation. Journalists filled in the gaps with fiction. By the 1980s, the story had become a legend.
The real Emily D. West stayed in Texas until early 1837. She applied for a passport to return to New York and said she had lost her free papers. Isaac Moreland, a Republic officer, confirmed her identity. The name “Emily Morgan” likely came from confusion with her employer and assumptions about her race. The hotel took the name years later. Not because she was ever here. Just because the story stuck.
Where Surgery Gave Way to Room Service
Construction began in 1924. Developers built the thirteen-story tower as a Medical Arts Building, where doctors saw patients, performed surgeries, and ran private clinics. The top floors were reserved for hospital beds. Patients could check in, have surgery, and recover upstairs.
Architects designed the building in the Gothic Revival style, adding carved stone details, high arched windows, and a pointed tower. Gargoyles line the exterior, but they weren’t just decorative. Sculptors carved each one to represent a different medical ailment, including toothaches, stomach pain, migraines, and other afflictions. It was a nod to the building’s purpose, though today it reads more like a warning.
Built from limestone and steel, it was one of the most advanced medical facilities in Texas at the time. The hospital operated for decades. Thousands passed through its halls. Some were treated and released. Some stayed longer. And some, according to the stories, never left at all.
Same Bones, New Bedding
The Emily Morgan became a hotel in the 1980s. Its interior was gutted and redesigned, but pieces of the original building remain. In some rooms, the sliding glass doors used to separate operating suites. The basement once held the morgue. Today it’s the employee cafeteria and housekeeping offices.
Staff say they know the stories. They hear them from guests. Some have had experiences of their own. A few believe the building still remembers what it used to be.
The Floor That Technically Doesn’t Exist
The fourteenth floor gets the most attention. There’s no Room 1408. The numbers stop at 1407 and skip to the Duke Suite. That’s by design. The digits in 1408: 1, 4, 0, and 8, add up to thirteen.
And there is no thirteenth floor. At least, not officially.
Many hotels skip the thirteenth floor altogether. You’ll go from 12 to 14 in the elevator panel, but the structure is still there. The superstition runs deep. The number thirteen has long been associated with bad luck, and buildings that cater to overnight guests often avoid it altogether, especially in older hotels, where management didn’t want to tempt fate or scare off customers.
At the Emily Morgan, the floor labeled “14” is, in truth, the thirteenth. Some believe that’s why this floor draws the most reports. Whether it’s numerology, psychology, or something else entirely, guests keep noticing the same things: the smell of antiseptic or rubbing alcohol, sudden drops in temperature, and a feeling of being watched.
One couple said they heard a man clear his throat next to the bed, though only one of them was in the room. Another guest said the thermostat turned itself down and the lights flicked off without warning. Unsurprisingly it’s not uncommon for guests to ask to be moved to a different room or part of the hotel.
Running Water, No Witnesses
Water turns on by itself. That’s the report. Multiple guests have called the front desk to say all the faucets in their bathroom suddenly turned on at once. By the time staff arrive, the sinks are dry.
In 2021, the general manager confirmed it. He said guests often hear running water and get frightened, but by the time they reach the bathroom door, everything stops. Staff say there’s no mechanical explanation. There are no plumbing issues. And yet it happens again and again.
Where the Lady in White Walks
This is where she’s seen most often. Guests describe a woman in white moving silently down the hallway. Sometimes she’s pushing a gurney. Sometimes she’s walking alone. Some say she wears a nurse’s uniform. Others describe a hospital gown or a long white dress. A few call her “the bride.”
The details change. The feeling doesn’t. She never speaks. She doesn’t look at anyone. She appears briefly, then disappears before anyone can follow. Guests report hearing carts rattling on tile, footsteps that stop just outside the door, and bathroom doors that open and close on their own. More than a few say the rooms feel occupied, even when no one else is there. One guest said it felt like someone was standing at the foot of the bed all night, even though they saw nothing.
There’s no single story behind her. Just a pattern. A white figure. A sense of presence. And an uncanny stillness in the air every time she appears.
The Bathtub Incident
One of the strangest documented incidents came from a hotel sales manager named Deborah McNabb. She was staying in a guest room for an event. On her first night as a guest she left for dinner. When she returned, she found the bathtub half full of bright blue water. Figuring that another staff member was playing a prank on her she went to check the system to see who had accessed the room. The keycard logs showed no one had entered the room while she was gone.
Up, Down, and Occasionally to the Morgue
The elevators in the Emily Morgan Hotel have their own stories. Guests say they sometimes stop on floors that weren’t selected. A few have reported being taken to the basement by accident. Others say the elevators ring the front desk from inside, even when no one is there.
Most of the time, there’s a mechanical explanation. But not always.
Long before the building became a hotel, the elevators were operated by hand. Frank Martinez ran them for more than three decades. He started in 1943, back when the building was still the Medical Arts Building. He worked the controls manually, guiding the car floor by floor with an old-fashioned lever. Martinez once said he liked the job because he liked elevators and he liked people. For 32 years, he sat in a six-foot-square metal box and brought patients, nurses, and doctors up and down the tower.
He’s long gone now. The controls are automated. But the system has never completely stopped surprising people.
Sounds, Smells, and Presence
The reported activity in the Emily Morgan Hotel isn’t centered around violent sightings or intense physical events. Most of it is subtle. Sounds in the hallway. Pressure changes. Brief smells of rubbing alcohol, iodine, or something sterile and chemical. Water that turns on and off. Feelings that pass and leave people unsettled.
In many cases, it’s not what people see, it’s what they feel. Guests say the rooms feel full, even when they’re alone. Staff say some floors are unusually colder than others, or more difficult to stay in for long.
The Stories We Tell
Most people who stay at the Emily Morgan Hotel don’t experience anything unusual. The rooms are quiet. The building is clean and well cared for. But some people leave with stories. Some leave early. The hotel never advertised itself as haunted. It didn’t have to. People kept talking. Guests asked questions. Over time, the stories became part of the place.
The Emily Morgan doesn’t feel like a hotel built to scare people. It feels like a building that remembers what it used to be. And some of what happened here may still be happening.
If you spend a night there, you might not notice a thing.
Or you might leave with a story of your own.
