ALAMO — It’s not hard to find the Alamo Inn, a small, white, two-story
building in downtown Alamo. The six-suite bed and breakfast has become the
cornerstone of a growing downtown and keeps people coming back to the area
for a taste of small-town hospitality. “We have people that come year
after year,” said Keith Hackland, the owner. “People come here because
they’re looking for a special experience. We get interesting people in
here all the time.”
Hackland, 52, and a native of South Africa, has owned
the Alamo Inn for more than four years. He bought it from Eric Orme, a
former Alamo resident who owned the buildings for three years. Built in
1919 as the Alamo Land and Sugar Co. Building, the structure over the
years has been a drug store, apartments and a bank. “We did a lot of
repairs on the building,” Hackland said. “Starting with patching up the
holes in the walls, to cleaning the trash and (picking up) broken things.”
It took Hackland, his wife Audry Jones, and a multitude of friends about
18 months to remodel the hotel. “We thought we were never going to finish
it,” he said. “But we knew we had to, and it was a lot of work.”
Each suite has a different theme, including the Victorian-style
Edinburg suite; the Pancho Villa suite, with original pine floors and
photos of the Mexican revolutionary leader; and the Padre Island suite,
which includes a hand-painted sky ceiling and 10-foot sailfish. Almost
everything in the historical suites have original artifacts and antiques
from that time period, including a 100-year-old wooden rocking chair and
mule harnesses from the early 1900s.
Hackland said running the inn isn’t as difficult as he thought it would
be. On any given day, he’s up before 7 a.m. making breakfast for his
guests or checking people in. “I’ve even been known to help clean up some
of the rooms, too,” he said. “And maybe it’s because I have a lot of hard
jobs, but this is honestly the easiest thing I’ve ever done, there are
really neat people who stay here all the time, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Hackland’s first visit to the Rio Grande Valley was in 1967 as an
exchange student from South Africa. He attended PSJA High School and met
Jones; he came back to Alamo 30 years later and married her. As for his
guests, some travel as far as 1,700 miles just to stay in the hotel. “We
heard about Keith’s place from a friend of ours,” said Tom Thorpe, who was
visiting the hotel with wife Vera. Thorpe, a Madison, Wis. Native, said a
friend of his kept talking about the bed and breakfast. “We had been going
to Palm Springs for a long time, and it just got too expensive,” he said.
“So I called Keith and here we are.” Thorpe said he doesn’t know how long
they will stay at the inn. “Maybe a month, maybe two,” he said. “But one
things for sure, we will be back … it’s so beautiful and there’s great
hospitality.”