The Von Minden Hotel
Ah, the Von Minden built in 1927.....the only hotel left in texas with a working movie theatre that has quite an interesting history behind the place. I don't feel like explaining the story behind it all but if you're interested Click Here! So Phil and i went to visit the hotel on my spring break and his vacation hoping we'd be able to get a room. So we arrived in schulenburg having no idea where the hotel was, but we figured it shouldn't be hard to find since it is a small little town. Well, we found it immediatley and it stuck out because it was the biggest building in the area. We had seen many photos of it from the internet too, so we knew what we were looking for.
When we saw it we were shocked about how it looked. It's so much different looking at it in person than from photos. It looked so creepy, run down, and it had "i'm haunted" just written all over it! no not literally, but you know what i mean. Some windows were broken, and in some windows you could see piles of stuff cluttered up against the window like they were using it as a storage room. So we parked, took pictures, and then got ready to go inside. And just as we had read from a few stories about that place....when we walked into the Von Minden it was just like walking back into time. And just as we expected there was nobody there...the lobby was empty, and the desk was cluttered with letters. there were news paper articles about the place framed leaning up against a mirror. but nobody was there! i told phil that maybe we should check "Momma's Pizza" which i had read was a restaurant located there in the hotel that one lady was told to make a phone call to in order to make reservations to stay there. We walked around the building and found Momma's Pizza but it was locked and looked empty! Didn't look like there was any business going on there. So we were stumped and were thinking, what the hell do we do now?? So we did what anyone else would do in our situation and broke one of the windows open with a rock so that we could get inside Momma's pizza.
Just kidding! Now why on earth would we do such a thing? haha well, we went back to the hotel lobby and decided to just go ahead and make our way up the stairs. Wow! let me tell you! This place had all the characteristics of a typical haunted place....not only was it deserted and just plain old fashioned but there were cob webs, dust, silence, loud creaky floorboards and doors, long dim lit hallways, and of course the broken windows. Me and phil are such nerds when it comes to these kinda things that we were so overly excited when we started walking up the stairs our hearts started beating faster. And as we were walking down the hallway i felt my heart beating really fast, it was just a huge rush for us! Then phil told me "my heart is beating faster." and i was like "me too!" So we ventured up the stairs and walked up and down the hallways. It looked like they hadn't touched the place since 1927. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere. We opened a few linen closets and found mismatching blankets stacked high on the shelves. phil found an old clock radio on the top shelf too, he wanted to take it. haha.
Well, as we ventured through the hotel exploring, we decided to go back to the lobby. As we were walking downstairs we heard someone walking up the stairs, so we hurried downstairs to catch them because we figured it had to be the owners. Then we saw the man go into this room on the 2nd floor (the only room on the second floor) that had a sign on the door reading, "law offices of Pettit" It was weird because we knew he had to have heard us, because when you walk up and down those stairs they creek and your footsteps sound really loud since they're wooden. But he didn't bother to check who it was, just went straight to his office. We didn't want to bother the guy, but Phil ended up knocking on the door anyways. The man answered, i'm guessing he was Mr.Pettit and we asked him about renting a room there and he told us "oh, we don't let guests stay here anymore" and we were just like "oh. ok well you have a pretty neat hotel here" and he said "thank you" and that was pretty much it. then we knocked on his door again to ask him if he didn't mind if we'd look around...even though we had already done so. and he said "yeah sure" so that was cool! he was nice about it. So we ventured off into the hotel again and found some rooms to go into this time. I ended up taking so many photos there, it's just ridiculous. It was hard for me to narrow them down for me to share with everyone. But here they are...
This was the very first view of the building we had. There was a parking lot next to it....
Unfortunately they showed Curious George that night...
.......
It's has the date it was built on the left....1927
light bulbs!!!
Only $4 to see Curious George! what a great deal!
And so we entered the lobby...
and no one was there....
or was there somebody there???
hehehe
yes! the phone booth in the lobby!
And so we headed upstairs...
Oh no! Phil Busts out his video camera!
just a recliner chillin next to a bag of trash in the hallway, that's all....
The second trip up there we decide to go into this little room.
And phil freaked out when he saw the old coke machine was still being used...
then there was this snack machine......
Good! now i know who painted that room, i was wondering who had done so.
Then down the hallway there's Hard Times, which used to be the apartment of Mr. & Mrs. Speckle,
the original first owners of the place. The Von Minden was a wedding gift from either Mr or Mrs. Speckles
father. i can't remember who's father, but i know it was a wedding gift for them.
Too bad the door for Hard Times was locked because they had some pretty neat
things in there. Like the cigarette vending machine sitting in the corner that phil
was drooling over.
since it was locked i just took picture through the window.
Looks like i'm actually in the room! but i'm not! =P
Phil started checking to see if any of the bedrooms were open....
And he found one unlocked!
So he started going through things in the room
Meanwhile, i took pictures in the bathroom...
then we found ouija boards int he library! The library was very small.
Room 36...that's where it ALL happened. Well, not really ALL but something happened...
anyone need to go to the ladies room?
i took this one because i was wondering what happened here. why did this room switch to room 34?
and why does this door get to have a lion knocker on it?! Poor other rooms were neglected from having
a lion placed on them.
So after three times of going though the hotel and finding a few ghosts
me and phil decide that's enough and so we head down the stairs...
down down down the stairs....
yeah phil was way ahead of me, he was scared wated to get out of there,
leaving me behind! kidding....he was scared! or was he?
then back to the lobby! and we say our goodbyes!
It was a very very interesting place! You'd have to visit the place yourself rather than looking at photos to truly understand the feeling. well, if you're into that kinda stuff. Phil wants to go back at night time, so hopefully we'll get a chance some time to visit the von minden again. and since we couldn't stay at the hotel, we took off to galveston where we ate ice cream, candy, played miniature golf, drank shiner bocks in the street, and went to all the antuque stores of course. since that was phil's main reason for going. he showed me the places he used to go to as a kid and showed me those cool machines were you put in a quarter and the instrument inside plays music for you on it's own. Although the banjo and other instruments were way off it was still neat. Phil ate lots of crawfish, and i ate lots of shrimp. We had to go out to texas city(about 20 min. from galveston) to get a hotel room because all the hotels in galveston were booked. On our way back to san antonio we stopped in shiner where we got free beer and a tour of the shiner brewery. Then we visited the "piano bridge" which was so old it had warning signs to drive on it at your own risk. we pulled over to walk on it and from just us walking on it the boards moved and looked like they were going to collapse from just us walking on it. We made our last stop at some abandoned buildings that were half gone. I took pictures with my 35 mm camera for my photography class there. they came out pretty neat! Phil found a turtle's skull and shell there so he took it. The turtle obviously died from being stuck upside down on his shell. poor little guy. What else did we do...oh yes! then we went to austin because i told phil there was a band i wanted to see there. Little did he know i really had gotten him tickets to see the comedians of comedy! he had no idea they were even going to be in austin. so i really suprised him with that, and he was very excited! we got to be right in the front too where we could lean on the stage. anywho well, we had a great time and i know Phil did because he laughed so much he cried. Well, that was pretty much my spring break. and if you actually got through this whole thing without me getting you too bored, then thanks. and sorry this was so long...i just wanted to document my lovely spring break adventures that i had with phil on my journal.
laterZs!.