Ulysses S. Grant’s Son Honored in San Antonio

San Antonians have welcomed many famous Americans and visitors from abroad to their city. These well-known guests have included presidents and other government officials; artists and entertainers; authors; military officers; religious leaders; and scholars.

Program cover for the banquet honoring Frederick Dent Grant, December 1, 1902.

One famous visitor, Frederick Dent Grant (1850-1912), was the guest of honor at a banquet sponsored by San Antonio’s Business Men’s Club and held on December 1, 1902 at the Menger Hotel. While not easily identified today, Frederick was the eldest child of Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia Dent Grant. An 1871 graduate of West Point, Fred enjoyed a lengthy military career in which he served with William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George Armstrong Custer and served in the Bannock War, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War. According to Frank Scaturro of the Grant Monument Association, Fred “became a Major General in the Army and was the second highest ranking man in the active service at the time of his death in 1912.” Additionally, at times Fred also worked as a civil engineer, businessman, diplomat to Austria, and New York City police commissioner.  

(Caitlin was formerly a Library Aid and Park Guide at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri. As a result, she has an enduring interest in the Grant family and was very excited to find the program included in this entry. It should be noted that Ulysses S. Grant also visited San Antonio on at least a couple of occasions. As a soldier during the Mexican War, Grant traveled around southeastern Texas, visiting Corpus Christi and Austin as well as San Antonio; he described these travels and the countryside he saw in some detail in his Personal Memoirs. His later visit(s) to the city were much more social in nature, as, for example, he stayed at the Menger and was a guest at the Casino Club.)

Program and menu at the banquet.

The library’s collection of banquet programs in the DRT 2 Ephemera Collection documents this special event held for Frederick Dent Grant. Note also that the men who spoke at the banquet were among San Antonio’s most prominent citizens at the turn of the twentieth century.

For more information about famous San Antonio and Alamo visitors, please ask about the library’s vertical files about these topics.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Guest Register from San Antonio’s Most Haunted Hotel

In the spirit of Halloween, we thought we would discuss something in our collection from a historic landmark that some claim is one of the most haunted places in San Antonio – the guest register from the Menger Hotel.

The Menger, located across Crockett Street from the library, is one of Texas’s oldest hotels. Since its 1859 opening, it has developed a long and illustrious history. Notable guests include former presidents such as Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower; military greats like Sam Houston and Robert E. Lee; and literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and O. Henry. Teddy Roosevelt even recruited some of his Rough Riders at the Menger’s bar.

However, the hotel also has a reputation for being one of the most haunted locales in the city. The most famous of the Menger’s ghosts is Sallie White, a former maid who was murdered by her husband in 1876. Some guests and employees have seen Sallie’s ghost on the second floor in the original section of the hotel. She performs her old duties, like cleaning rooms and making beds. People who have seen her say that she wears a long skirt with a white apron and a bandana on her head.

Other famous Menger ghosts are the ladies in blue. One of these apparitions has appeared in a room on the second floor where employees claim to hear strange noises and see lights go on and off by themselves. According to Docia Schultz Williams in her book The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel, maids prefer to clean this room in pairs. This is because one day, a maid, while cleaning the room, felt that someone else was there with her. When she turned around, she saw a lady in long blue dress. The woman had blonde hair and looked as though she was from the 1930s or 1940s. Other employees have seen the lady strolling on the patio. The other lady in blue has been in seen in the lobby. She is middle-aged and wears a blue dress with red stars. She also wears a beret and shoes similar to those worn by the Women’s Army Corps in World War II. She is usually seen knitting or reading the newspaper.

Many other ghost stories like this exist for the Menger. For more, try these sources:

• The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel by Docia Schultz Williams

• My Most Intriguing Investigations of True Ghost Encounters by Dr. L.E. Patterson

• “Ghost Sightings” page on the Menger’s website

The guest register that the library has spans from February 15, 1874-December 26, 1874. Below are some sample pages. Perhaps some of the Menger’s ghosts have written their names on this register. Happy Halloween!

A page from the register featuring guest signatures, their place of residence, which room they stayed in, and the time that they arrived.

This is one of many pages of advertisements in the Menger guest register. These pages are interspersed among those with guest signatures.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.