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CHAPTER 3

Alamo Quarry Market

NORTH CENTRAL SAN ANTONIO

ADMITTEDLY, I tend to be more than usually skeptical when I hear reports about shopping centers and the like being haunted and to give a hard look at whether there is, in fact, a credible reason why they would be. In the case of the Alamo Quarry Market, however, it does not take too much digging to reveal that, being located just a few miles from the headwaters of the San Antonio River, it has been continuously inhabited since time immemorial. More than 10,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians hunted and gathered throughout the abundant area, and every group of people who have followed them, from Apaches and Comanches to Spaniards, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans, have availed themselves of its riches as well. Prior to being adapted for commercial use, in fact, it was the site of the sprawling Alamo Cement Company factory, and many elements of the old industrial complex have been retained and even incorporated into the shopping center. So, Alamo Quarry Market has more than enough history behind it to make a case for it being haunted.

In the late 19th century, Englishman William Loyd discovered what he believed to be a natural cement rock in what is now nearby Brackenridge Park and had chemist George H. Kalteyer confirm that its lime and clay could produce what is known as Portland cement. Loyd proceeded to organize a group of investors to form the Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company in 1880 (a name shortened the following year to simply Alamo Cement Company). It was the first such cement plant west of the Mississippi and one of the earliest in the United States. Initially powered by steam engine, it ground 10 barrels of cement a day.

Alamo Cement Company quickly expanded and diversified its operations, burning lime, selling building stone, constructing sidewalks, and even obtaining from the original inventor the patent rights for segmented sidewalks that could better accommodate expansion and contraction caused by seasonal temperature changes. Its main product however, was Alamo-brand cement, which was used widely in building projects, large and small, throughout Texas, including the state capitol building and the Driskill Hotel, both in Austin.

After Kalteyer died in 1897, Charles Baumberger became president of the company and set about further expanding it. In 1908, it was reorganized under the name San Antonio Portland Cement Company. Eventually the cement material at the Brackenridge location was exhausted. The site was then abandoned and the plant relocated to an area some distance away that came to be known as “Cementville.” The original site became known as Baumberger Plaza in 1944 and was eventually placed on the National Register of Historic Places, while the quarry itself became the Japanese sunken gardens at Brackenridge Park.

Alamo Quarry Market, a snazzy outdoor shopping plaza dubbed a “lifestyle center” by its developers, is located in San Antonio’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood and near its Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills areas. It incorporates many elements from the old cement factory into its architecture, including the original kiln. Its stores include Ann Taylor, Coldwater Creek, Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack, Office Max, Pottery Barn, Whole Foods Market, Michael’s, and Tous among others. Dining options are provided by California Pizza Kitchen, Chili’s, J. Alexander’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, Orange Cup, PF Chang’s, Piatti, and Starbuck’s. What catches people’s eyes from miles away and can be seen most clearly from nearby Highway 281, however, are the five huge cement factory smokestacks.

These immense structures are 36 feet wide at their bases and 30 feet wide at their tops and soar more than 200 feet above the shopping area. They were previously retrofitted with steel bands every 20 feet from top to bottom, but these components had either rusted and fallen off or become loosened, providing little if any structural reinforcement. In 1998, the owner of the property responded to this by bringing in structural restoration and preservation specialist Delta Structural Technology Inc. to restore and preserve three of the smokestacks. That company utilized an exclusive retrofit technique that involved complete encapsulation of the smokestacks using high-performance structural composites saturated in an epoxy matrix. This process took about two months and was recognized with multiple awards from the historical preservation community and concrete construction industry.

One of the most haunted parts of the shopping area is reputed to be the Regal Alamo Quarry Stadium 16-movie theater, the largest establishment in the retail complex and one that actually incorporates old plant machinery into its decor. According to local legends, bodies were entombed in its foundations when it was being built and, while details on this atrocity are somewhat vague, some people claim that the spirits of these unfortunates now haunt the site. Reported paranormal activity there includes feeling inexplicable cold spots throughout the second floor of the theater, lights in the auditorium slowly dimming and then coming fully on and then repeating the process, and sightings of a phantasmal child in the projection room.

For more than five years I drove past Alamo Quarry Plaza, intrigued by the striking smokestacks, but I had not had the opportunity to visit it until July 3, 2014, on my way back from investigating a nearby site. It was a blazingly hot day and I staggered around taking pictures, not so much conducting an investigation as just trying to get a sense for the place. When I finally accomplished all that I reasonably could, I moved on to the theater and obtained entry to it in the easiest and most unobtrusive way possible: I bought a ticket to a movie. Initially I planned on seeing Transformers: Age of Extinction, but, remembering how execrable its predecessor had been, was more than open to other options and would have preferred something more thematically appropriate. Tammy, 22 Jump Street, and Think Like a Man 2 just weren’t going to happen. Maleficent was getting a little closer but was not quite there. And then I spotted Deliver Us from Evil.

I was pleased to discover that my film was showing not just on the reputedly haunted second level but also at the very far end of a long, dark corridor. In retrospect, however, this creepy occult thriller based on ostensibly real events, as good as it is, may not have been the best choice and did not help with the less-than-optimum conditions under which I was operating.

I made a point of arriving about half an hour before the film started so that I would have a little time to make some observations, but I had decided not to bring my camera in with me, cinemas often being sensitive about such things. There were only a few people in the theater when I got there, however, and I probably would not have had any trouble doing a decent photo shoot of the area without attracting undue attention from the management. As it was, I did not see anything with my naked eye before the film began—and, of course, once it did begin, it was easy to see all sorts of things in the darkness after glancing away from the screen, especially one filled with scenes of demonic possession and other horrors.

It did, undeniably, feel unnaturally cold in the theater. I had, however, spent several hours that day walking around in the overwhelming Texas heat and gotten borderline dehydrated and a bit lightheaded. So, both the frigid temperature and my otherworldly feeling were all pretty much to be expected.

There was practically no chance at all of capturing any kind of paranormal audio phenomena like EVPs, because the whole theater was pretty much awash with anomalies. This included noise bleed from films showing in other parts of the building and horrible static during the pre-film attractions that was, according the manager, caused by problems with the signal being used to stream it. And, ironically enough, a plot point of the film was phantom noises that one character could hear but that no one else could!

Every investigation, of course, no matter how structured or casual, does not result in evidence of haunting or other paranormal phenomena. Sometimes it is enough just to enjoy the history of a place. Alamo Quarry Market affords ample opportunity for that as well as a chance to satisfy the shoppers in your group and get a decent meal at any number of places—and, of course, to see a good film if one happens to be showing when you are there.