The Onion House got its name from Judge John Onion who purchased the house in the 1930s . The building itself was made with limestone and was built and owned at the time by Joseph Huebner who had horses and a stagecoach stop for people to stop by.
The location is on Bandera and Grissom by a hotel. You can't miss it since its right off the Bandera highway. I know at one time the historical society were making repairs to reopen the house as a historic museum but vandals broke in and spray painted the inside of the house. The historic society tried to raise funds but it seems the project had been abandoned. Its my hope there were be enough funds to fix what needs fixing to maybe open it to the public.
Update: December 23,2009
I edited the story I heard from a friend of mine so I took the story off completely. What is know is people who had once occupied the building claim there are ghosts that occupy it. Strange sounds of glass shattering when there is none there. To read more on the Onion house two individuals have provided some insight to the real story of the Old Onion house on Helotes. Thank for those who shared their story.
Just FYI the Onion house is gated so its not like you can just walk in and explore. At one time these historic sites were accessible to explore but as you know vandals have to leave their mark and ruin it for the rest of us who want to check out places like this.
The good news is that there is a historic marker in front of the building so I plan to this week to take a photo of it and post it on my haunted blog for you to check out. So keep looking ok?
I did find this interesting link of someone who happened to stay at the hotel next to the Onion house community board. This is an external link.
Photos I took around 2008 of the Onion House
31 comments:
what I heard from my dad, who is very versed in this story is that at one time there was a small railroad behind the house and that the children were (as they often did) playing on the opposite side of the tracks in the woods. There was a china cabinet in the house that would rattle when the train was coming, and their mother would yell for them to come inside to be safe, but one day when coming back the small girl (youngest) got her shoe stuck in the tracks and he brother tried to get her out. The train hit them and killed them both.
but they were not the last occupants. a judges family refurnished the house before they tried making a historical museum (right?) and the family was upstairs when they heard the china cabinet fall and all the china break, but when they went downstairs to see it was upright.
i know this story because my dad is a lawyer and has worked (and is friend-so to speak) with judge Onion, and he has always told us this story whenever we would drive by it..
This is the first I have heard of this version and thank you for the contribution to the story of the onion house.
It would be nice if they did open it up as a historical museum for the public to view. Hopefully one day it will be part of the Leon Valley's historical treasure.
I am from the Onion family and my great grandparents lived in that house and my dad stayed in it several times as a kid. My dad said he would hear the sounds of glass or plates breaking and nothing would be there. And he also would be in the same room as the piano and it would start to play an know one would be there. Plus, he also recalls the kitchen cabins opening and closing. And no one murdered anyone in the family. Someone mistook a bottle of oil as rum and drank it. They though he was dead and they buried him but now their thinking he really wasn't dead. Scott onion
Oh I'm sorry. I talked with some family member just after I posted my post and that a rumor that the guy drank the oil. No one is sure what happened
Hi Kobe
Thanks for the follow up on the story. I hope one day they do open up the Onion House. Its a nice building and a shame its not open up again as maybe a museum.
I remember hearing talk about it opening up but that was along time ago. The onion family (us) we don't own it anymore.
I grew up down the street from the Onion House. When I was little and my mother would drive us down Bandera I would always wonder what happened to that old house. It looked like it use to be so beautiful and sad why it was abandoned. I hope they reconstruct it. However, I always did get the chills everytime we passed by it. The house would always have me curious about it. I was told so many different stories about it. So I probably will never know.
I grew up down the street from the Onion House. When I was little and my mother would drive us down Bandera I would always wonder what happened to that old house. It looked like it use to be so beautiful and sad why it was abandoned. I hope they reconstruct it. However, I always did get the chills everytime we passed by it. The house would always have me curious about it. I was told so many different stories about it. So I probably will never know.
My dad lives over here in Leon Valley and me and a couple friends went over there sometime during Christmas 2009 and it was around 5pm and since the place is gated we were going to hop the fence. i started walking closer to the onion house and in the process i heard a mans voice saying "please dont go in there." i looked at my friend and she told me i shouldnt go. i didnt listen to her and hopped the fence and busted in. once i got in there i started laughing. i looked at my friend and she told me get out of there now! i laughed at her and told her nothings happening. well as i was walking out the door slammed. i got stuck in there for 15 minutes to hear women screaming and a little kids laughter. i will never go near there again.
I used to live on setting sun in Leon Valley and there were woods that led to the Onion house and this was back in the 80's and me and my brother and some other friends went in the house because it was abandoned. The house was trashed, books everywhere and honestly just being in that house gave me the creeps. I never knew it was haunted we were just curious kids and wanted to see what was inside.
I've only seen the building from the outside during the day but there are many accounts of those who were in the building who have had ghost experiences. I guess its like with anything sometimes they come out sometimes they don't. Thanks for commenting.
I've been looking for people who could corroborate or at least had a similar experience to my story of the onion house. I have been searching for a particular video tape my friend had made. Must have been back 2000 or 2001 he and 2 of his friends wanted to pull a prank on two of their girlfriends they videotaped a pretexed trip to the walgreens shortly after it opened (this could tell what year it was)so after shoplifting some chocolate they decided to go to the onion house as this had become a high school hangout of sorts. They show the girls getting all spooked by some noises from the back the girls run out they chase them down in the front of the building and explain it was their other friend in the back making the noises. Now here is the spooky part. We were at my house making fun of those girls when my friend broke out the tape so I could see the look on the girls faces when they got spooked. While we were watching and then my friends other buddy startled and says wtf and made james rewind. In the upper corner window where there was no floor(renovations)for anyone to stand was a woman her entire body looked like cigarette smoke she was dressed like little house on the prairie bonnet and all she wore a shawl and had her arms outspread she was looking out in the front sort of where the guys were sytanding occasionally back over her shoulder at what appeared to be two orangesh red glowing eyes. Now I say it was a security light but it0 never flashed bright with all their movements so I don't know. Anyway standing in front of the woman was a little girl same makeup same type of garb no shawl. The woman looked back and forth several times and then wrapped her arms and shawl around the girl and they both walked backwards band dissapeared from view into the shadows on a floor that wasn't there. We took. That tape apart bought a frame by frame vcr (one of the first ever sold at walmart) that night these guys just didn't have the technology to fake it no split or tape on the tape and photoshop was too crude for that level of detail. We kept the tape for a while but we eventually moved and the tape was lost. If anyone here has seen it please contact me if anything so I can get a copy. I can't believe we had proof and let it go like that.
Thanks for posting your experience.
Guys don't believe @Davila210. She is my step sis. She made that story up. Yes we did go down there but we did not jump the fence and she did not go inside. She was actually the farthest away because she thought a homeless man was gonna attack her. I'm sorry if any one thought other wise. BTW hey Danielle.
But the house was not built by Judge Onion. It was built by Joseph Huebner, an Austrian jeweler and blacksmith, had built the first floor of the house sometime between 1858 & 1860. Judge Onion bought the property and moved in with his family in 1930.
ive never experienced any of this but wen i was a kid in elementary school, my teacher was telling us this story and said the house was built way back when it was just a dirt road and it was the only out there. i remember her saying that the whole family died and now if u were to drive passed it or visited it u'd see a body figure in the attic looking right at you. she also added that if n e one went in they werent coming out but that she might have just added to make the story a little scarier to a bunch of 5th graders.
ive never experienced any of this but wen i was a kid in elementary school, my teacher was telling us this story and said the house was built way back when it was just a dirt road and it was the only out there. i remember her saying that the whole family died and now if u were to drive passed it or visited it u'd see a body figure in the attic looking right at you. she also added that if n e one went in they werent coming out but that she might have just added to make the story a little scarier to a bunch of 4th graders.
K let me try this again. So I used to play little league in the baseball field right behind the onion house , and finally got to go up in there, with a couple friends of mine, and my brother so you got horse stables you go through if your coming from the fields and if you went all the way back you ran into a small gravesite on the side of house, just so yall know I'm not lying, back to the story so me my bro and my friends went in, looked around saw dishes on the floor, downstairs , one of friend went up stairs so we did, saw a bunch of satanic graffiti, in the two rooms upstairs even though the stairs were like burnt up, so we headed back downstairs to the main room where the front door was, and they went into this closet and they were all staring down at something inside the closet and I was looking in the fire place maybe for a note or something, and as I started looking toward them and wondering what they were looking at I saw a grinning red skull by the right shoulder of them in the darkness of the closet as they were looking lower left and yelled and took off out of there shortly met up by them asking what happened , I told after we left all together and been searching in cemetaries ever since and I've seen some crazy shit, no lies.
K let me try this again. So I used to play little league in the baseball field right behind the onion house , and finally got to go up in there, with a couple friends of mine, and my brother so you got horse stables you go through if your coming from the fields and if you went all the way back you ran into a small gravesite on the side of house, just so yall know I'm not lying, back to the story so me my bro and my friends went in, looked around saw dishes on the floor, downstairs , one of friend went up stairs so we did, saw a bunch of satanic graffiti, in the two rooms upstairs even though the stairs were like burnt up, so we headed back downstairs to the main room where the front door was, and they went into this closet and they were all staring down at something inside the closet and I was looking in the fire place maybe for a note or something, and as I started looking toward them and wondering what they were looking at I saw a grinning red skull by the right shoulder of them in the darkness of the closet as they were looking lower left and yelled and took off out of there shortly met up by them asking what happened , I told after we left all together and been searching in cemetaries ever since and I've seen some crazy shit, no lies.
when i was a kid we always drove by it and in all honesty i saw a man standing at the second story window dressed in black...i think about it till this day driving by it..it had me pretty shock'n up that's for sure
when i was a kid we always drove by it and in all honesty i saw a man standing at the second story window dressed in black...i think about it till this day driving by it..it had me pretty shock'n up that's for sure
when i was a kid me and my parents would pass by this house a lot and i remember like it was yesterday we were driving past it and i looked at it and saw a man in black standing at the window on the 2nd floor...gives me the frkn creeps man i still get goosebumps.
I remember driving past it many times as a kid back in 84' since we lived out on Tezel Rd. I always remembered seeing light from a TV through the windows left of the porch. Years later in middle school a friend and I visited the place after we rode my friends gf's bus to the neighborhood behind what was then the Bandera Bowl. The house was abandoned by then and there wasn't much to see. The stairs in the house had been burned out so there was no going up stairs. The smaller houses around it were interesting though. One of the buildings,we climbed through a window which was filled to the sill with old books and notes some essays dating back to the 30's. Overall it wasn't too eerie with the mid-day traffic so close.
I remember driving past it many times as a kid back in 84' since we lived out on Tezel Rd. I always remembered seeing light from a TV through the windows left of the porch. Years later in middle school a friend and I visited the place after we rode my friends gf's bus to the neighborhood behind what was then the Bandera Bowl. The house was abandoned by then and there wasn't much to see. The stairs in the house had been burned out so there was no going up stairs. The smaller houses around it were interesting though. One of the buildings,we climbed through a window which was filled to the sill with old books and notes some essays dating back to the 30's. Overall it wasn't too eerie with the mid-day traffic so close.
after all these years, still no video...
In the summer of 2000, some friends and I decide to go on what we were calling "Ghost Hunt 2000". We visited the haunted tracks, and the onion house. We jumped the fence at night, went in and video taped. It was scary as hell...a ton of graffiti, but the house was otherwise intact. We didn't see any apparitions in the video playback, and there were no ghostly noises. We were more concerned with disturbing a homeless squatter, so we didn't explore the whole house; just the main living room.
The scariest thing that happened was the battery died on the video camera, and with it went the light. Hooooooly crap!
Ghost Hunt 2000 sure got the heart pounding!!!
My first ever ghostly experience was here. Pretty spooky place my story is below as Ryerye. Anything similar would love to know about it.
The onion House Is Not haunted
The onion house is not haunted
I was in that house several times as a kid when Mrs. Onion still lived there. I don't remember ghost stories but I do remember that she had a snake living atop some cabinets. It had evidently lived there for years and never bothered her! That is scarier than any ghost story. I remember one side of the house was built without windows. I also remember she gave me a little toy that I still hang on the Christmas tree. Years later, I discovered that I had one or Mrs. Onion's great grandchildren in my biology class at Madison High School. I guess it is all in what you have been told. I look at the house and see a welcoming place.
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