Omni La Mansión del Rio, San Antonio: Little Jimmy and the Old St. Mary's School

Omni La Mansión del Rio is one of the most handsome hotels on the San Antonio River Walk, with red-tile roofs, carved doors and a courtyard pool tucked behind thick stucco walls. Most guests never guess that the core of the building is a school. For 113 years this site on College Street was St. Mary’s, a Catholic school founded by French Marianist brothers in 1852, which grew into St. Mary’s College and then housed St. Mary’s University School of Law until 1966.

The ghost story here is a gentle one. Staff speak of Little Jimmy, believed to be a young student from the school days, who is said to haunt the old gymnasium, now an event space. Rusty Wallace, the hotel’s area managing director, told KSAT that one window in that room keeps cracking on its own. If you want a historic, quietly haunted stay a few steps from the river, this is a good pick from our guide to haunted hotels in San Antonio.

The ghosts of Omni La Mansión del Rio

Little Jimmy, the schoolboy who stayed

The hotel’s best-known ghost is a boy staff call Little Jimmy. In a 2024 KSAT report on San Antonio’s haunted hotels, he was described as a mischievous young Catholic student from the building’s school days. Nobody has put a surname to him, and there is no record of a student death attached to the story, so treat Jimmy as hotel lore rather than history.

That fits the building. For more than a century boys filled these rooms, from the first hundred or so pupils in 1853 to the college students of the 1920s. A playful child ghost is exactly the kind of story a former school collects.

The window that keeps cracking

Jimmy’s calling card is a window in the old gymnasium, now one of the hotel’s event rooms. According to Wallace, speaking to KSAT in 2024, it is the last window on the left, and it has cracked again and again with no obvious cause. At the time of that interview it had gone about a year without breaking.

A cracked pane in an old building can have plenty of ordinary explanations, from settling walls to temperature swings. Staff still like to say it is Jimmy, and it is the one detail most San Antonio ghost tellings repeat.

Quiet corridors and old classrooms

Beyond Jimmy, the stories are thin. You will see general claims online of footsteps and voices in the older corridors, but we have not found them in the press or from the hotel, so take them as hearsay.

If you are listening for something, the quiet hours after the River Walk empties out are the time to do it. The hallways around the courtyard are the historic heart of the hotel.

A school that never quite let go

La Mansión also keeps its school past alive in ways that have nothing to do with ghosts. A Texas historical marker in the hallway to the pool tells the St. Mary’s story, the El Colegio Bar off the lobby takes its name from the old college, and Four Brothers, the hotel’s newest restaurant, is named for the four Marianist founders. Some guests find that the building feels lived in by its past. That is part of the charm.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The old gymnasium: Now an event space, and the room tied to Little Jimmy and the cracking window. It is not a guest room, so you may only see it if an event or a history tour takes you there.
• El Colegio Bar: The bar off the lobby, named for the old college. A good place to start an evening and ask staff what they have heard.
• Rooms in the historic wing: The original limestone school buildings face College Street and the courtyard. Ask for a room in the older part of the hotel rather than the six-story river addition if you want the most atmosphere.
• The courtyard: The center of the old campus, with the heated pool. Quiet late at night, when the surrounding halls feel most like the old school.

History of Omni La Mansión del Rio

In 1852, sixteen years after the fall of the Alamo, four French-born brothers of the Society of Mary arrived in San Antonio. Andrew Edel, John Baptist Laignoux, Nicholas Koenig and Xavier Mauclerc started building at once, and on March 1, 1853, when the school’s bell rang for the first time, it opened to more than 100 students of all faiths.

The school grew fast. Brother Charles Francis, who joined the faculty in late 1854 and was remembered as the great builder, spent 54 years in San Antonio finishing the campus, and by 1870 it was a well-proportioned limestone structure in a European style. By 1875 it was one of the largest building complexes in the city. It ran as St. Mary’s Academy and, from 1924, St. Mary’s College. The Texas historical marker inside the hotel notes that the school educated eight future mayors of San Antonio.

As the college grew, its main campus moved to San Antonio’s West Side, and from 1934 to 1966 the downtown building housed St. Mary’s University School of Law, The site had served as a school for 113 consecutive years when the law school left.

In 1966 Patrick J. Kennedy bought the empty building; the hotel’s own history says two former students bought it to convert into a hotel. The developers added a six-story wing over the river and restyled the exterior in the Spanish Colonial Revival manner, with red-tile roofs, spiral columns and heavy carved doors. The hotel opened in April 1968, in time for HemisFair, San Antonio’s world’s fair. Historic Hotels of America says it first traded as La Posada Motor Hotel; it has long since been La Mansión del Rio.

The building became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1969. Omni Hotels acquired it in 2006, and it joined Historic Hotels of America in 2010. Today it sits between the River Walk and College Street, a short walk from the Alamo and a few blocks from older haunted hotels such as the Menger and the Crockett.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask about the hotel’s guided walking tour of the historic property; it is the easiest way to see the old school spaces, and staff are usually happy to talk about Little Jimmy.
• Have a drink in El Colegio Bar off the lobby, and ask the bartenders what they have heard about Jimmy.
• Look for the Texas historical marker in the hallway that leads to the pool and patio. It tells the St. Mary’s story in brief.
• Ask for a room in the original limestone wing rather than the river addition if atmosphere matters more than a view of the water.
• Combine your stay with an evening walk to the Alamo, the Menger and the Emily Morgan, all within about ten minutes on foot.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Menger Hotel: San Antonio’s most famous haunted hotel, beside the Alamo
• The Crockett Hotel: fourth-floor reports and a restless elevator
• The Emily Morgan Hotel: a former medical arts building with a morgue in its past
• The Alamo: the ghost stories of San Antonio’s most famous landmark
• Haunted hotels in Texas
• Haunted hotels in San Antonio

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Omni La Mansión del Rio: History
• Omni La Mansión del Rio (official site)
• Historic Hotels of America: Omni La Mansión del Rio history
• Historic Hotels of America: Omni La Mansión del Rio dining
• Waymarking: Old St. Mary's College historical marker
• KSAT: The sometimes haunted stories behind local historic hotels (2024)
• San Antonio Current: Omni La Mansion del Rio ranked among most romantic hotels (2023)

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