Five Points Ghosts

My home town of San Antonio, Texas has several claims to fame. The greatest, of course, is this is where the Alamo is located. Because of the many movies about "The Thirteen Days of Glory" a lot of people know about the Alamo. To Texans it is a shrine. Sooner or later every true Texan must make the pilgrimage to the Alamo. Eventually we take our children and our grandchildren to this hallowed place. The Alamo is also a place ghost hunters study constantly. It has been there for nearly 300 years and the famous Battle of the Alamo in 1836 was only one of many conflicts fought near this hallowed spot.

Another claim to fame is that San Antonio is the second oldest European colony in the United States. St. Augustine, Florida grabs the title as oldest. Another second place award is given to San Pedro Springs Park, a small park across from San Antonio College. San Pedro Springs Park is the second oldest public park in the United States. Boston Commons is considered the oldest public park in the U. S.

San Antonio can justifiably claim the title as the most haunted city in the United States. This isn't solely due to its history as a European colony either. There is evidence that humans have been coming to the area for ten thousand years. The San Pedro Springs are the attraction. They were known to Native Americans as Yanaguana, meaning refreshing waters. This free-flowing sweet water was the principal source of San Antonio's municipal water until the 1930's. Many battles were fought in the area including one famous one between the Comanche and the Texas Rangers.

I grew up near the area called Five Points. Originally Five Points was a place where five important trails met and crossed San Pedro Creek. This part of Five Points is an epicenter of hauntings. Several ghosts are considered to haunt the area where the creek and those five trails meet and cross.

Five Points is a spot where trails to five different regions of Texas come together. Because San Pedro Creek, which originates at the San Pedro Springs Park, runs through the area it was a good place to stop and obtain water. Native Americans lived and traveled through this area long before Europeans ever came to the Americas. Trails, hundreds if not thousands of years old, met and crossed here. Currently the streets meeting in the area are called Fredericksburg Road, North Flores Street, West Laurel (which runs near San Pedro Springs Park) and North Laredo. These roads originally were trails leading to and from Mexico (N. Laredo), the Hill Country (Fredericksburg Rd), Gulf Coast (N. Flores), Northeast to the Plains (W. Laurel) and southwest (also W. Laurel) to the TransPecos area.

In the mid-1800's Five Points was a natural meeting spot for people bringing herds of cattle together to get ready for trail drives. Since Indians also used the area to obtain water there were inevitably battles fought there. Eventually a small community was established. At first it was just saloons and a place to obtain supplies but eventually, long after the trail drives were over, people began building houses in the area. By the 1890's a thriving neighborhood had been established on the outskirts of San Antonio. A bakery was built to serve the people in the neighborhood. My mother worked there and a friend's mother told me she and her friends used to go there to get special baked goods when they were girls. Now Five Points is considered part of midtown with San Antonio extending many miles beyond it.

When I was growing up my grandmother told me a story about the Five Points Ghost. We went past Five Points every Sunday on our way to Beacon Hill Baptist Church. Most times we took the bus, but if it was a nice day we would walk. When we walked we walked across the San Pedro Springs Creek Bridge. This was in the 1950's. As we crossed the bridge my grandmother would sometimes tell me the story of the ghost that haunted the area around the bridge. A young woman walking home from work late at night had been killed there. Her killers had never been found so the story went. Because justice hadn't been served she remained there looking for the men who had killed her.

If you ask people now where Five Points is they will tell you it is a several square mile area that includes San Pedro Springs Park, San Antonio College and Austin Academy. When I was growing up I lived a block to the east of Austin Academy. In those days it was known as Stephen F. Austin Elementary School. I went there my first couple of years before Mom decided to put me in Ursuline Academy, where I learned a whole bunch of new ghost stories.

Now people will tell you the Five Points area developed in the 1890's. This is only partly true. It was at that time people began building houses in the area. There were already some businesses there. In the mid-1800's the place was a good spot for cattle drovers to meet with the cattle they were gathering to drift north to Abilene, Kansas. Because of San Pedro Springs there was always water and grass available. Naturally enterprising sorts opened up places for the cowboys to eat, drink and buy supplies.

Later, doing research for history projects in college, I learned that a young woman had indeed been killed there in the early 1900's and her killers never discovered. I talked to some retired police officers who said the officer in charge of the investigation had an idea of who had killed her, but never had sufficient evidence to prove the case.

I was also told about a man who saw the ghost as a boy, during the early 1980's. He, his brothers and some friends had begun breaking into cars and stealing things to get money. One night just after they'd made a haul and hid under the bridge to divide their loot they saw a woman. She was dressed in white and had a veil over her face. When she lifted the veil and looked at them they were so frightened they dropped their ill-gotten gains and ran home.

After the man told his mother what they'd seen she told him the woman had been killed in the area. She also told him the ghost only appeared to men and boys who had been doing something wrong because she was still searching for her killers. He quit stealing and eventually became a law officer.

When I went to the Five Points area to recheck some of my facts I realized that there was actually a second ghost story attached to the area. It involved a young woman who was hit by a train. This happened in the late 1920's. I knew the story well because the woman was my great aunt. She was late to work and had to cross the tracks to get to her job. In her haste she miscalculated and was killed by a train.

At about the same time this accident occurred (though I'll mention here my grandmother thought her sister had actually been murdered by her husband) there was a horrible train/school bus crash in Utah. Both stories were in the newspapers at the same time and somehow became entwined. Now there is a story about a section of track in San Antonio where, if you stop your car and put it in neutral, it will begin to move and roll across to the other side of the tracks. It is also said if you sprinkle fine dust or powder over your trunk area you will see handprints. This is not in the area where my great aunt was killed, but it is easy enough to see how the stories became mixed together and evolved.

The bridge where the Five Points ghost was seen no longer exists. The creek has been diverted under ground through a tunnel because a number of people were killed in floods in the area. It was decided that it would be safer to direct the creek under the roads. Besides the bridge disappearing there are very few houses near the area anymore. Instead there are boarded up stores and big warehouses. Considering how spooky the area is in broad daylight I can certainly see it is considered haunted and still attracts ghost hunters.