24-story former Alamo National Bank Building completed in 1929, listed on the National Register in 2006, converted to a Drury Plaza Hotel in 2007—guests report a phantom security guard still patrolling the old bank vault.
105 S St. Mary's St, San Antonio, TX 78205
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Hotel rooms vary by season; lobby accessible to visitors. Check website for current room rates.
Access
Wheelchair OK
High-rise hotel with elevators and accessible lobby. The 40-foot stained-glass lobby is at ground level.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1929 · National Register of Historic Places (2006) — San Antonio Downtown and River Walk Historic District · 24-story 1929 Alamo National Bank Building · Preserved 40-foot stained-glass lobby
The Alamo National Bank Building at 105 South St. Mary's Street was completed in 1929 as a 24-story skyscraper designed to anchor San Antonio's downtown financial district. The building served as the operational headquarters of the Alamo National Bank, with an imposing lobby featuring 40-foot ceilings and stained-glass windows designed to project institutional stability.
The bank's long downtown tenure ended as the building aged and financial consolidation reshaped San Antonio's banking landscape. By the early 2000s, the vacant skyscraper was recognized for its architectural significance, and on May 10, 2006, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing resource in the San Antonio Downtown and River Walk Historic District.
Drury Hotels undertook a conversion of the building into a hotel, which opened in 2007. The renovation preserved the distinctive lobby volume and stained-glass work while transforming the upper floors into an all-suite tower. At the time of opening, the building retained the original bank vault in the lower levels—a space that became the focal point of the building's most-repeated paranormal claim.
The hotel operates under the Drury Hotels brand, which also manages properties throughout the Midwest and South. The Riverwalk location gives guests walking access to the San Antonio River Walk, the Alamo, and San Fernando Cathedral.
Sources
Ghost City Tours documents the Drury Plaza Hotel as one of the more specific haunting accounts in downtown San Antonio's hotel district. The central figure is described as a phantom security guard observed in the lower-level areas near the original Alamo National Bank vault, appearing to guests and staff as a recognizable human silhouette moving through the space before vanishing.
The vault-guard narrative is a credible structural haunting story in the sense that it attaches to a specific architectural feature still present in the building—the original bank vault, preserved during Drury Hotels' 2007 conversion. Ghost City Tours confirms the vault survives in the converted hotel and notes the gallery caption 'the vault where the security guard's ghost still patrols.'
Beyond the vault guard, ghost-tour accounts document broader reports from the upper floors of the 24-story tower: guests reporting unexplained noises in the corridors, lights flickering in rooms without electrical cause, and apparitions described in general terms. No specific named individual is attached to any of the upper-floor reports in sources reviewed.
The combination of a named location (the vault), a consistent figure description (the security guard silhouette), and the building's preserved architectural bones makes this one of the more grounded hotel haunting accounts in the San Antonio corpus, though no primary source—newspaper account, police record, or hotel incident report—has been located to corroborate any specific incident.
Notable Entities
The former Alamo National Bank's converted guest rooms and suites occupy a 24-story 1929 skyscraper. The ghost-tour account of the phantom vault guard is best engaged from a room or via the lobby, where the original bank's architectural bones—40-foot ceilings, stained-glass windows—are visible.
The 40-foot lobby with original stained-glass windows is the most accessible way to experience the 1929 bank building's architecture and the historical context behind the vault guard legend without an overnight reservation.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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