The Freeman Coliseum

Posted: 03.27.2025 | Updated: 03.27.2025

As one of the oldest venues in San Antonio, the Freeman Coliseum is a great location to experience the best sports and entertainment events in Texas. But this venue, designed for entertaining the masses, is also home to some of the most bizarre and unsettling haunting legends in the state.

Find out more about the most spine-tingling locations in San Antonio and the surrounding areas when you book a ghost tour with us here at River City Ghosts.

Is the Freeman Coliseum Haunted?

Places like the Freeman Coliseum are not your typical location for ghostly encounters, but oddly enough, there are multiple odd and unusual urban legends linked to this popular downtown venue. It makes you wonder, what type of horrid events really occurred at this otherwise fun and exciting location?

About the Freeman Coliseum

The Freeman Coliseum, located at 3201 East Houston Street, is a sports and concert venue serving the community of San Antonio for more than 70 years. Built in 1949, it was once the largest indoor arena in the city before the HemisFair Arena opened several years later in 1968.

The venue, designed to seat up to 11,700 people, was originally known as the Baxter County Coliseum. It was later renamed the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum to honor the brothers who pushed the promotion for the coliseum to be built. But before the building was constructed, the land it sits on was used for several important events.

Historical Events at the Freeman Coliseum Location

The site where the Freeman Coliseum currently sits was once the location for the San Antonio International Fair and Exposition back in 1889.

During WWI, the barns used during the exposition were reused as a place to house German soldiers in a POW camp. It was a combination of a concentration camp and a forced labor workshop.

Later, in 1918, the entire International Fair Exposition building was destroyed by a fire. There are also rumors of a secret network of tunnels underneath the property. Additionally, it’s believed that before departing for Cuba, Teddy Roosevelt trained his gang of Rough Riders on the same exact property.  

Events at the Freeman Coliseum

The Coliseum was the official home of the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo until 2003. The venue hosted many other events, including concerts, trade shows, circuses, and professional sports such as hockey, motor sports, wrestling, and boxing matches. Elvis even performed there back in the day.

But along with all the different forms of entertainment the venue hosts, the historic Freeman Coliseum is also believed to be the most haunted place in all of San Antonio.

The Ghosts of the Freeman Coliseum

Ask anyone who has worked at the Freeman Coliseum about haunting experiences, and you may be surprised at how many different and truly bizarre stories you’ll hear. While the urban legends linked to fatal events occurring during live performances are easy to piece together, there are other strange and unusual tales that seem to have no particular reason for happening there.

The Cackling Clown

The Freeman Coliseum has hosted several circus events over the years, bringing smiles to the faces of the young and young at heart. It is a magical experience to witness the majestic animals performing tricks and the graceful acrobats flying through the air.

Clowns are a staple of the circus industry, and their amusing antics bring a sense of joy and humor to the event. But when tragedy strikes during a performance, it can be a traumatizing consequence for the performers as well as the audience members.

It was during a routine clown act one evening when a male clown’s performance came to a halt as he suddenly went into cardiac arrest. Before they could get paramedics on the scene, it was too late, and the clown died right there in the ring in front of hundreds of families who were in attendance.

It has been said by many staff members and visitors to the venue that you can often hear loud and sinister cackling while walking through the venue all alone.

Tragedy at the Rodeo

The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo was one of the key sporting events in the area, bringing the biggest crowds to the venue. Guests were in for a thrilling evening of excitement every time the bull riders took to the large open space.

The professional riders and the crew at the venue knew how to handle their bulls to ensure the utmost safety for everyone involved. But accidents still happen. Unfortunately, just as one rider was heading out to compete, a young woman got too close to the action and was trampled by the raging beast, leading to her tragic and horrendous death.

It has been said that visitors can hear a woman’s whisper near the site of the incident. Some have also heard the faint sound of a woman screaming in the middle of the night.

Occult Sacrifices and Rituals?

Perhaps one of the strangest urban legends to come from the Freeman Coliseum is the theory that satanic rituals and sacrifices were once held there.

This unusual story is one of the most popular legends of the venue. Unlike the clown’s death or the tragedy at the rodeo, there has been no distinctive link found between the coliseum’s history and the occult.  Still, there have been disturbing reports, such as people seeing apparitions of bloody ghost babies found on the venue’s floor.

Most people tend to dismiss this particular urban legend, but when you think about all the events that occurred at the site before the venue was built, it adds a new perspective to the story. It is quite possible that the ghosts of those who lived on the land first created a ritual that would later cause people to flee from their property.

Roosevelt’s Rough Riders

Perhaps the most talked about haunting legend from the coliseum is the one about the spirits of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders lurking in the shadows.

The Rough Riders were the most famous of all military units that fought in Cuba in 1898. They were the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned from his position as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to join them.

Originally the unit was meant to be filled with men from the Indian Territory as well as Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. However, once Roosevelt joined them, it became a diverse team of troops, including everyone from Ivy League athletes to Texas Rangers.

The Rough Riders made headlines throughout the nation following their involvement in the Battle of San Juan Hill, which became a legendary war story thanks in part to Roosevelt’s unsurpassed detailed writing ability.

It has been said that Roosevelt trained his Rough Riders on the land where the coliseum now sits. According to the story, several of his men who were active during the Spanish-American War died due to diseases or other unknown ailments. 

While some historians argue they were trained at a different location near the San Antonio River, most ghost hunters and experts in the field claim the Freeman Coliseum property was the real training ground.

People have reported seeing apparitions of spirits who were once members of the unit, roaming around the halls and dark corners of the venue. Some have specifically reported seeing a shadowy man dressed in an 1800s soldier uniform, who is around 6 feet 4 inches in height, walking through the venue’s hallways.

A Fifth Unknown Ghost Hunting Crew Member

Ghost hunting experts, the Klinge Brothers, have toured the Freeman Coliseum, and they said it is an interesting location because of the constant activity taking place there. With so many tragic deaths happening at the venue, it is easily a magnet for dark energy.

As the brothers were lying down to sleep for the night inside the coliseum, where they stayed throughout the investigation, a crew member in another location radioed them, asking how many people were in the room. The brothers responded that there were four. Several crew members who were viewing the space using thermal energy equipment, radioed back, telling them, “Well, we see five.’

Haunted San Antonio

The City of San Antonio is believed to be one of the most haunted cities in Texas. It is an old city home to many ghosts, and although some of them are harmless and friendly to the living who seek them out, many others are not.

Thanks in part to the bloody battle at the Alamo, as well as the untimely deaths at many other historic locations, San Antonio has an endless number of haunted spots and creepy legends of spirits attached to them.

To find out more about the haunting tales of San Antonio and the surrounding areas, be sure to check out our blog. And if you want to take a deeper dive into the creepy legends in town, schedule a ghost tour with us here at River City Ghosts.

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Sources:

• https://freemancoliseum.com
• http://www.sarodeo.com/who/mission.html
• https://www.expressnews.com/projects/guides/san-antonios-most-haunted-places/
• https://www.longhorncharterbus.com/blog/spookiest-destinations-in-san-antonio/
• https://www.sacurrent.com/sanantonio/san-antonios-spookiest-haunted-locations-and-urban-legends/Slideshow/35732672/35732992
• https://www.sanantoniomag.com/beyond-brothers/
• https://ryanreiffert.com/blog/facts-san-antonio/
• https://guides.loc.gov/world-of-1898/rough-riders#:~:text=The%20most%20famous%20of%20all,to%20join%20the%20volunteer%20cavalry.