Fairmount Hotel….Traces of Texas
The event was featured on news broadcasts around the world, and it earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. The transportation of the historic Fairmount Hotel, six blocks along the downtown streets of San Antonio 40 years ago.
Prior to his death in 1903, Theodore Felix, who was a mercantile store owner and postmaster of St. Hedwig, decided along with his wife Veronica, to build a hotel in San Antonio, which would be perfectly located for those travelers using the South Pacific Railroad Depot downtown. It would also be situated close to Alamo Plaza…a business hub in those days. Hence, the future hotel would be known as a “salesmen’s hotel”…a place to stay for ( as they were known then ) “drummers”
The land they chose was on the corner of East Commerce and Bowie, on the site of the former grocery store that was owned by Veronica’s uncle Jacob Zaionitz.
It was April 18th, 1906 when ground was broken for the hotel…the same day as San Francisco was shaken by a tragic earthquake, almost leveling the city. When it was revealed that among the surviving buildings was the newly-completed Fairmont Hotel, Veronica Felix decided to name San Antonio’s newest hotel, the Fairmount Hotel.
Facade of the San Antonio hotel….mysa.com
Although it began in grand style, the building was later used as a furniture store, and by 1968, the Italianate Victorian style hotel, designed by famed architect, Leo J. M. Dielmann, had fallen vacant and into disrepair.
In 1980, property developer Edward J. DeBartolo Jr, in partnership with Allied Department Stores, had plans to construct a new multistory shopping mall in San Antonio, just across from the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. The day after the announcement of the development was made, it was revealed that the now-derelict Fairmount Hotel was a highly-prized historical structure, and could not be demolished. This fact was revealed by the Conservation Society of San Antonio.
Conservation Society of San Antonio logo
Discussions between the parties were slow, and many predicted some sort of confrontation. A request by the developer to demolish the old hotel was rejected by the Historic Review Board, and ideally the Conservation Society would prefer to see the structure incorporated into the new complex…or moved to another location.
Some agreements were made to avoid the demolition of the structure, but the process took time, and nearly four years passed before any activity took place. Once it was decided to relocate the building, a new site had to be found. The first option was a piece of land owned by the City Water Board ( later SAWS ) about a block to the east of its present location. However, this was used as a parking area for the Water Board, and the Conservation Society would need to construct a multi-tiered parking garage to compensate for the land given up by the Water Board. This suggestion was rejected.
With encouragement from the mayor Henry Cisneros, a consortium of investors agreed to move the Fairmount Hotel elsewhere, and a site used as a car park on the corner of Nueva and South Alamo was chosen as the preferred destination. It was 6 blocks from the current location, and adjacent to the historic La Villita neighborhood.
La Villita….San Antonio Riverwalk
There were not only roads and corners to negotiate on the journey, there was also a bridge crossing the manmade extension to the Convention Center to take into account.
Emmert International, a specialist moving company from Portland, Oregon, under the direction of Terry Emmert, was assigned the project which eventually cost close to $1 million. Using a series of beams, ties and supports, the 1,600 ton Fairmount Hotel was gently lifted eight feet off the ground to sit on thirty six specially-designed dollies rolling on eight pneumatic tires. Each dolly was valued at about $30,000.
After a few false starts, at 3pm on Saturday March 30th, 1985, from its original location on Bowie and Commerce, the Fairmount Hotel rolled the first inch of the 1/2 mile journey. A crowd of about a thousand spectators broke out in cheers and applause as the hotel lurched forward. The building had been blessed by Auxiliary Bishop Bernard Popp who called on St Anthony de Padua, the patron saint of San Antonio to protect the structure during the move.
Blessing the Fairmount Hotel…San Antonio Express News
The residents of San Antonio embraced the venture, and it quickly turned into a party atmosphere with food, drinks and souvenirs being sold along the route to enthusiastic spectators.
In front of the hotel were seven trucks full of sand to offset the weight of the structure as it crept along the streets. Along the way, traffic signals, poles and roadside benches were removed to allow extra room as it rolled by.
Towing the Fairmount…San Antonio Express News
Shortly after it began the engineers were faced with the challenge of towing the 1,600 ton hotel over the Market Street bridge, which crossed a newly-installed channel on the Riverwalk. In preparation for this, the channel below was drained and extra support was put under the bridge. To ensure that the weight of the hotel didn’t impact the integrity of the bridge, a couple of beer bottles were strategically placed under it, with the theory that if the weight of the hotel was too great, the bottles would shatter, and the structure could be reversed off the bridge to avoid a catastrophe. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when after 9 minutes, the hotel had safely reached the other side of the river crossing.
Fairmount Hotel and the Market Street bridge….San Antonio Express News
The journey, which began at 4am each day, took all of 6 days as the building crawled its way through the city streets, taking an average of 4 hours to turn a corner. The urgency was that Easter was approaching, and everyone wanted it safely installed at the new location before the crowds came into the city.
Turning a corner…..San Antonio Express News
The Fairmount finally reached its destination at 11am on Wednesday April 3rd after crawling past the Hilton Palacio del Rio hotel.
Passing the Hilton Palacio del Rio….mysa.com
Now began another tricky maneuver. The building had to be turned 90 degrees, without any forward motion, in order to back it onto the cleared resting place. This took five hours, and much to the frustration of the city officials, because of final site preparation, the hotel had to sit in the middle of Alamo Street that night before the final installation took place on April 4th….the day before Good Friday. The city bosses were anxiously watching the calendar with the Easter weekend looming.
The next morning it was all hands on deck, and with careful positioning, the Fairmount Hotel reached the new foundations at 3pm on Good Friday 1985. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Not one brick had been dislodged, and a small statue of St. Jude placed inside the building at the start, had not budged.
The task of renovating the hotel began, adding extra rooms and bathrooms, offices, a courtyard, restaurant and function rooms. The hotel literally doubled in size.
Sometime later, the new Fairmount was officially opened. Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie flew in to perform with the Happy Jazz Band, and the mayor Henry Cisneros declared the new hotel officially open on September 6th, 1986.
Today, when you visit the Fairmount Hotel, you will find photos of that moving experience on display, and those memories of San Antonio.
Author photo
San Antonio Express News
Additional stories:
- Some things to note when looking at the Fairmount Hotel today, the colors were reversed on the new wing, with the former red brick used on the new trim and accents, while the former cream colored trim making up the majority of the new extension. Also, for uniformity, the balconies on the extension matched those on the original structure.
- Prior to the Fairmount Hotel arriving at it’s new location, there had been a gas station and another business there. However, with the excavations needed to install the 1,600 ton hotel, 63 archeologists were called in because it was discovered that this site had been a an area that had Mexican occupation prior to the Battle of the Alamo in April 1836. While meticulously scraping away the soil, the archeologists uncovered cannon balls, musket balls, bayonets, knives and numerous other artifacts that dated back to 1836, which prompted the comment that this site proved to be one of the most significant digging sites in San Antonio
Finding the artifacts…University of Texas at San Antonio
Credits
- Lost Texas Roads
- San Antonio Express News
- San Antonio, the Story of an Enchanted City…Frank W. Jennings
- Saving San Antonio…..Lewis Fisher
- Traditions and Visions…AIA San Antonio, a Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
- It Happened in San Antonio….Marilyn Bennett
- San Antonio Uncovered…..Mark Louis Rybczyk
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Memories of San Antonio 