New Braunfels, TX

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Faust’s Ghost:

Haunted Hotel In Texas

by Rick Moran

The United States celebrates a host of holidays, but for most Americans Halloween offers the most fun. Throughout the land, children dress in all manner of costumes and adults revel on the night when many believe the long passed dead are closest to our dimension. In some parts of the country, like Salem, Mass., where witches were once hung, the evening is most festive, but with or without a local ghost, everyone enjoys the annual event. In some towns however, the night is especially interesting, when residents know that the spirits are near.

Nestled just a block from the old town square on New Braunfels’ main thoroughfare, sits a four-story structure that holds the dubious reputation as Texas’ most haunted hotels.

Shortly after the First World War, city leaders felt that New Braunfels deserved a world class Hotel and groundbreaking for what is now The Faust began. The hotel opened officially in 1929, just in time for the Great Depression era. Originally called The Travelers Hotel, standing adjacent to the rail lines that converged nearby, soon became the place to meet and greet, where business leaders and traveling businessmen sealed their deals. As devastating as the Depression was, the City saw its first real economic test when the boll weevil blight hit the area, virtually destroying the textile industry of the region.

The Travelers weathered the Depression and blight thanks in great part to the people who originally envisioned a need for the hotel in the first place. Led by Walter Faust Sr., the hotels original owner and a cadre of like-minded business leaders, the hotel, renamed The Faust in 1936, managed to struggle through the hard times prior to World War II. During the war, the hotel gained yet another reputation, this time as the honeymoon capitol of Texas. GI’s training at nearby military facilities flocked to the hotel with their brides before going into combat. One old timer remembered a time when there were more newlyweds in the hotel than businessmen or travelers.

Today, the old Spanish revival facade shows its age, but also offers a certain charm. The main floor boasts a micro-brewery taproom and restaurant, while the front lobby of the establishment is decked in a 1930’s motif, complete with an antique 1929 Model ‘A’ Ford parked next to the centerpiece grand piano. Each of the rooms has been renovated, but boasts of original furnishings and period photos, including one of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the notorious Texas bank robbers, over one bed we found. The architecture, furnishings, beautiful 1928 mirrored elevator and grand but weathered elegance of the Faust Hotel can also boast of one additional drawing card. It is very, very haunted.

Beginning some time after the death of the hotel’s founder in 1932, a remarkable series of seemingly unrelated events began at the Faust. Walter Sr. had resided at the hotel until his passing and had a reputation of being something of a trickster in life, so when the hotel staff noticed that the furniture on the 4th floor hall was being rearranged virtually every night, they had no qualms about placing the blame at the feet of their most famous resident. Some guests have reported seeing old Walter on the 4th floor to this day, commenting on how dashing he looks in his period suite and tie. He is also blamed for resetting the old fans in the hallway to high and opening doors for guests as they approach the front door. The doors are very heavy and have never opened by themselves, even in near tornado conditions.

While the permanent guest of the 4th floor may or may not be Walther Faust Sr., there is no doubt that his portrait, now located in a hallway leading to the basement, still holds some energy from his brilliant spirit. As the story goes, there was a massive thunderstorm some years back, which plunged the entire hotel into darkness. This is not unusual in Texas, where severe weather often can take out an entire city. The manager on duty at the time found her way down the stairs toward the basement and was somewhat surprised to see light radiating from an alcove adjacent to the door to the basement’s power room. The light was coming from the small lamp that lit the portrait of Walter Sr. and the woman thought nothing more about it.

As she turned away to go into the basement proper, she heard a distinctive snicker, much like one you might expect hearing from a practical joker who has scored a complicated trick. She turned again and saw the picture was still illuminated, but saw no one and thought the sound had been the wind. There were no doors or windows from which the light might be reflected from another source, she noted.

A few moments later, she reset the circuit breakers and retraced her steps back to the lobby, stopping momentarily to note that the bulb on the hotel founder’s portrait was now out. Once everything else was back to normal, she asked a maintenance worker in the hotel to replace the bulb, which she surmised had to have blown out when she reset the breakers.

To her astonishment, the maintenance man told her that it was useless to replace the bulb and impossible to have seen the light on that night. That electrical line, he reported, was cut at the main breaker box, had no power and had been inoperative for years. To prove his point, he returned to the alcove with the young manager and tested the circuit, which was indeed cold. Walter Sr. certainly had his reason for a chuckle that night.

Both guests and employees have reported other spirits. The most common report is of “cold spots” usually related in spirit phenomenon. A recent guest noted one evening that with the air conditioning off, there was a constant corner of her bedroom, near a window overlooking the front of the hotel, that was unbelievably cold, a good trick when the temperature outside was well into the 90’s. One night clerk notes with some glee that on some evenings the door to the front desk area will begin to swing open and shut without anyone touching it and, she adds, there is no strong draft to cause the phenomenon.

Before the existence of the microbrewery in the taproom there was a regular hotel bar. The last of the old bartenders was pleased to tell his story about his Faust ghost, who would rearrange bottles behind the bar at will. The barman said that he always placed the half empty bottles in front of the full ones each night at closing time, and without fail, he would regularly return to find the process reversed the next day.

A hotel maid, who is still working at The Faust, has her story to tell as well. She maintains that one day, while servicing a guest room on the 2nd floor, she walked into the hallway to see a little girl standing near her linen cart. When she attempted to talk to the youngster, the girl turned and ran, straight into and through a solid wall. The maid later found that there is a photo of the child hanging in the 3rd floor hallway. A little research showed that the wall through which she reportedly passed, was once a doorway into a suit of rooms, long since subdivided. The child has been nicknamed Christine, a name that kept surfacing in the maid’s head after her first sighting, although no one really knows what her name might have been or why she is still in residence here.

The second floor has a second ghostly presence; a man in what is reportedly turn-of-the-century dress, who is seen walking into the elevator. After several sightings, both regular guests and hotel employees decided they want to see who this man was, only seeing him from the side and back in the hallway. One of the employees did have the opportunity to get a good enough look to identify him as a man from a photo on the second floor, who is pictured with his wife. Other ghost hunters have tried to beat the man down the single flight of steps to meet him face to face in the lobby, but all have failed. While the 80-year-old elevator is slow enough, the elevator always arrives at the lobby without its passenger!

While some say that they prefer the more modern motels along Interstate 30 on the edge of town to the haunted Faust, many more go out of there way to book rooms well in advance of their visit to the tourist attractions of New Braunfels, saying that a chance encounter with a friendly spirit only adds to the beauty of the place. The present publisher of New Braunfels’ Herald notes that while no scientific investigation into claims of the paranormal have been undertaken, the vast majority of the local residents believe the reports, likening it to tales of the Haunted Horror Hotel of movie fame.

The City of New Braunfels has been in existence for almost as long as the State, founded by a Germanic prince in the foothills near San Antonio and currently a tourist Mecca for both a world class Wurst Fest each November and summers of fun rafting the Guadalupe River and riding the waves at America’s top water park, The Schlitterbahn.

The city of New Braunfels is filled with historic firsts, boasting the oldest bakery in Texas, as well as the oldest hardware store. It is the center of America’s melting pot culture, where German beer and Wurst, mix congenially with Texas Country Music and Tex-Mex fun. The town also has one of the oldest newspapers in the region, The Herald Zeitung and German is still widely spoken, with a decidedly Texas accent, all over the town.

New Braunfels was founded in 1845 by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels and was first and foremost a settlement for German émigrés who sought religious tolerance in the New World. By 1880 the little German American outpost had grown to become the fourth largest city in Texas. The city was alive and thriving when nearby San Antonio, scene of the Texas Revolution’s famous battle of the Alamo, was standing in near ruins. But New Braunfels was different, the community offered hard workers with distinctive crafts, that in turn created an economy that was to be admired throughout the nation. New Braunfels was one of the first cities to vote for public education, two decades before the Texas Constitution was changed to adopt a similar system in 1876.

During the American Civil War, while most Texans proudly flew the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars, many of the German-Americans in and around this region remained loyal to the Federal government in Washington, setting yet another difference between New Braunfels and their surrounding neighbors. Because of the city’s strategic location, on the main road from Austin to San Antonio, and a major railroad line, the local support for the Union is noteworthy in Texas history. Those differences were also underscored by the fact that the Catholic Sister of Devine Providence opened a school for the education of blacks during post-civil war reconstruction in New Braunfels.

At the turn of the century approached, most of post war differences were put aside in the reunified State of Texas, in fact New Braunfels fielded many of the young men who fought with T.R. Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War’s battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, right along side the men of San Antonio, who made up the largest single contingent under the soon to be President.

And so folks still come to New Braunfels, to enjoy the delicacies of Wurst Fest, or go to the Schlitterbahn, the worlds top water park and go tubing down the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers that run through town; they visit antique stores and area museums and then they return to The Faust for some quiet moments, and maybe a chance to hear something go bump in the night.

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	Free E-zine of Travel Adventures Send this Page to a Friend Peace for Everyone Flag of Texas Faust’s Ghost: Haunted Hotel In Texas by Rick Moran The United States celebrates a host of holidays, but for most Americans Halloween offers the most fun. Throughout the land, children dress in all manner of costumes and adults revel on the night when many believe the long passed dead are closest to our dimension. In some parts of the country, like Salem, Mass., where witches were once hung, the evening is most festive, but with or without a local ghost, everyone enjoys the annual event. In some towns however, the night is especially interesting, when residents know that the spirits are near. Nestled just a block from the old town square on New Braunfels’ main thoroughfare, sits a four-story structure that holds the dubious reputation as Texas’ most haunted hotels. Shortly after the First World War, city leaders felt that New Braunfels deserved a world class Hotel and groundbreaking for what is now The Faust began. The hotel opened officially in 1929, just in time for the Great Depression era. Originally called The Travelers Hotel, standing adjacent to the rail lines that converged nearby, soon became the place to meet and greet, where business leaders and traveling businessmen sealed their deals. As devastating as the Depression was, the City saw its first real economic test when the boll weevil blight hit the area, virtually destroying the textile industry of the region. The Travelers weathered the Depression and blight thanks in great part to the people who originally envisioned a need for the hotel in the first place. Led by Walter Faust Sr., the hotels original owner and a cadre of like-minded business leaders, the hotel, renamed The Faust in 1936, managed to struggle through the hard times prior to World War II. During the war, the hotel gained yet another reputation, this time as the honeymoon capitol of Texas. GI’s training at nearby military facilities flocked to the hotel with their brides before going into combat. One old timer remembered a time when there were more newlyweds in the hotel than businessmen or travelers. Today, the old Spanish revival facade shows its age, but also offers a certain charm. The main floor boasts a micro-brewery taproom and restaurant, while the front lobby of the establishment is decked in a 1930’s motif, complete with an antique 1929 Model ‘A’ Ford parked next to the centerpiece grand piano. Each of the rooms has been renovated, but boasts of original furnishings and period photos, including one of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the notorious Texas bank robbers, over one bed we found. The architecture, furnishings, beautiful 1928 mirrored elevator and grand but weathered elegance of the Faust Hotel can also boast of one additional drawing card. It is very, very haunted. Beginning some time after the death of the hotel’s founder in 1932, a remarkable series of seemingly unrelated events began at the Faust. Walter Sr. had resided at the hotel until his passing and had a reputation of being something of a trickster in life, so when the hotel staff noticed that the furniture on the 4th floor hall was being rearranged virtually every night, they had no qualms about placing the blame at the feet of their most famous resident. Some guests have reported seeing old Walter on the 4th floor to this day, commenting on how dashing he looks in his period suite and tie. He is also blamed for resetting the old fans in the hallway to high and opening doors for guests as they approach the front door. The doors are very heavy and have never opened by themselves, even in near tornado conditions. While the permanent guest of the 4th floor may or may not be Walther Faust Sr., there is no doubt that his portrait, now located in a hallway leading to the basement, still holds some energy from his brilliant spirit. As the story goes, there was a massive thunderstorm some years back, which plunged the entire hotel into darkness. This is not unusual in Texas, where severe weather often can take out an entire city. The manager on duty at the time found her way down the stairs toward the basement and was somewhat surprised to see light radiating from an alcove adjacent to the door to the basement’s power room. The light was coming from the small lamp that lit the portrait of Walter Sr. and the woman thought nothing more about it. As she turned away to go into the basement proper, she heard a distinctive snicker, much like one you might expect hearing from a practical joker who has scored a complicated trick. She turned again and saw the picture was still illuminated, but saw no one and thought the sound had been the wind. There were no doors or windows from which the light might be reflected from another source, she noted. A few moments later, she reset the circuit breakers and retraced her steps back to the lobby, stopping momentarily to note that the bulb on the hotel founder’s portrait was now out. Once everything else was back to normal, she asked a maintenance worker in the hotel to replace the bulb, which she surmised had to have blown out when she reset the breakers. To her astonishment, the maintenance man told her that it was useless to replace the bulb and impossible to have seen the light on that night. That electrical line, he reported, was cut at the main breaker box, had no power and had been inoperative for years. To prove his point, he returned to the alcove with the young manager and tested the circuit, which was indeed cold. Walter Sr. certainly had his reason for a chuckle that night. Both guests and employees have reported other spirits. The most common report is of “cold spots” usually related in spirit phenomenon. A recent guest noted one evening that with the air conditioning off, there was a constant corner of her bedroom, near a window overlooking the front of the hotel, that was unbelievably cold, a good trick when the temperature outside was well into the 90’s. One night clerk notes with some glee that on some evenings the door to the front desk area will begin to swing open and shut without anyone touching it and, she adds, there is no strong draft to cause the phenomenon. Before the existence of the microbrewery in the taproom there was a regular hotel bar. The last of the old bartenders was pleased to tell his story about his Faust ghost, who would rearrange bottles behind the bar at will. The barman said that he always placed the half empty bottles in front of the full ones each night at closing time, and without fail, he would regularly return to find the process reversed the next day. A hotel maid, who is still working at The Faust, has her story to tell as well. She maintains that one day, while servicing a guest room on the 2nd floor, she walked into the hallway to see a little girl standing near her linen cart. When she attempted to talk to the youngster, the girl turned and ran, straight into and through a solid wall. The maid later found that there is a photo of the child hanging in the 3rd floor hallway. A little research showed that the wall through which she reportedly passed, was once a doorway into a suit of rooms, long since subdivided. The child has been nicknamed Christine, a name that kept surfacing in the maid’s head after her first sighting, although no one really knows what her name might have been or why she is still in residence here. The second floor has a second ghostly presence; a man in what is reportedly turn-of-the-century dress, who is seen walking into the elevator. After several sightings, both regular guests and hotel employees decided they want to see who this man was, only seeing him from the side and back in the hallway. One of the employees did have the opportunity to get a good enough look to identify him as a man from a photo on the second floor, who is pictured with his wife. Other ghost hunters have tried to beat the man down the single flight of steps to meet him face to face in the lobby, but all have failed. While the 80-year-old elevator is slow enough, the elevator always arrives at the lobby without its passenger! While some say that they prefer the more modern motels along Interstate 30 on the edge of town to the haunted Faust, many more go out of there way to book rooms well in advance of their visit to the tourist attractions of New Braunfels, saying that a chance encounter with a friendly spirit only adds to the beauty of the place. The present publisher of New Braunfels’ Herald notes that while no scientific investigation into claims of the paranormal have been undertaken, the vast majority of the local residents believe the reports, likening it to tales of the Haunted Horror Hotel of movie fame. The City of New Braunfels has been in existence for almost as long as the State, founded by a Germanic prince in the foothills near San Antonio and currently a tourist Mecca for both a world class Wurst Fest each November and summers of fun rafting the Guadalupe River and riding the waves at America’s top water park, The Schlitterbahn. The city of New Braunfels is filled with historic firsts, boasting the oldest bakery in Texas, as well as the oldest hardware store. It is the center of America’s melting pot culture, where German beer and Wurst, mix congenially with Texas Country Music and Tex-Mex fun. The town also has one of the oldest newspapers in the region, The Herald Zeitung and German is still widely spoken, with a decidedly Texas accent, all over the town. New Braunfels was founded in 1845 by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels and was first and foremost a settlement for German émigrés who sought religious tolerance in the New World. By 1880 the little German American outpost had grown to become the fourth largest city in Texas. The city was alive and thriving when nearby San Antonio, scene of the Texas Revolution’s famous battle of the Alamo, was standing in near ruins. But New Braunfels was different, the community offered hard workers with distinctive crafts, that in turn created an economy that was to be admired throughout the nation. New Braunfels was one of the first cities to vote for public education, two decades before the Texas Constitution was changed to adopt a similar system in 1876. During the American Civil War, while most Texans proudly flew the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars, many of the German-Americans in and around this region remained loyal to the Federal government in Washington, setting yet another difference between New Braunfels and their surrounding neighbors. Because of the city’s strategic location, on the main road from Austin to San Antonio, and a major railroad line, the local support for the Union is noteworthy in Texas history. Those differences were also underscored by the fact that the Catholic Sister of Devine Providence opened a school for the education of blacks during post-civil war reconstruction in New Braunfels. At the turn of the century approached, most of post war differences were put aside in the reunified State of Texas, in fact New Braunfels fielded many of the young men who fought with T.R. Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War’s battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, right along side the men of San Antonio, who made up the largest single contingent under the soon to be President. And so folks still come to New Braunfels, to enjoy the delicacies of Wurst Fest, or go to the Schlitterbahn, the worlds top water park and go tubing down the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers that run through town; they visit antique stores and area museums and then they return to The Faust for some quiet moments, and maybe a chance to hear something go bump in the night. ©2004 Rick Moran Subscribe Real Travel Adventures Web Magazine Thanks for visiting us! Add to Bookmarks \ _____________________ Home Previous Page Next Page ________________________ If any links don't work PLEASE NOTIFY US.