29°25′33″N 98°29′44″W / 29.42596812823756°N 98.49561911205586°W The Holiday Inn Express San Antonio N-Riverwalk Area (formerly the Comfort Inn Alamo/Riverwalk) is a hotel in downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA.[1]
Holiday Inn Express San Antonio N-Riverwalk Area | |
 | |
| Location | San Antonio, Texas United States |
|---|---|
| Built | 1878 |
| Architect | Alfred Giles |
| Architectural style | Mission Revival |
| Part of | Main and Military Plazas Historic District |
| NRHP reference No. | 79002914 |
| Added to NRHP | 1979 |
Built in 1878, the five-story building is rich in history and served as the San Antonio Bexar County Jail[2] until 1962.[3] In recent years, before becoming a hotel, the building was a records depot for both the city and county and is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The five-story stone and brick structure was originally designed by prominent architect Alfred Giles[2] as a two-story limestone facility containing twenty jail cells. Because of a rapid increase in the city's population, Henry T. Phelps designed a third-floor addition and remodeled the building in 1912, transforming it to the Mission Revival style.
In 1926, a second expansion was designed by Atlee and Robert Ayres,[4] a father-and-son team and leading architects of their time. The entire appearance of the building was changed, with the addition of two floors, a reconfiguration of window openings, and a projecting entry with an arched entrance porch. The present façade's appearance dates to that design, when the structure was faced in brick.[3]
A new jail was constructed in 1962; the old jail became the County Election Center and Archives Building. In 1983, it was used as a private records storage facility and later a city records storage facility, until 2000. In a 2002 rehabilitation, the building was repainted to emphasize the façade's brick detail.[3]
The jail was once known as the Shrimp Hotel. The double entendre came about because the jail was located on Camaron Street (Calle del Camarón),[5] named using the Spanish word for shrimp—which the locals applied to the crawfish in nearby San Pedro Creek—plentiful during the Spanish colonial period.
References
edit- ^ Cary, Michael (December 16, 2004). "Sleeping in the big house". San Antonio Current. Archived from the original on December 1, 2022. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
- ^ a b Corner, William, ed. (1890). San Antonio de Bexar: A Guide and History. Bainbridge & Corner. p. 39.
- ^ a b c "Historic Places - Old Bexar County Jail". San Antonio Conservation Society. Archived from the original on March 23, 2011.
- ^ Fisher, Lewis F. (1996). Saving San Antonio: The Precarious Preservation of a Heritage. Lubbock, Tex.: Texas Tech University Press. ISBN 0-89672-372-0. OCLC 34984044.
- ^ Scarborough, William Frances (2005). Stories from the History of Texas. Illustrated by H. Wedemeyer. [Whitefish, MT]: Kessinger Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 1-4179-3378-X. OCLC 180093233.