Cactus Ho!
It started as “Cactus Hot,” and more recently, as witnessed by the dropping of the T, the sign gets fainter and fainter.
Cactus Ho is in downtown San Antonio, literally, across the street from the old courthouse. The building itself is tucked behind, south and west, of the old main square. There is some historical value to the building, I’m sure, but I’m more interested in the sign.
It speaks to an era, and it speaks to me, more than anything else. In the middle of the modern commerce, with the vicissitudes of cultures that wash back and forth, next to the County’s seat, all that seems left is a shell. I’m not sure why a lawyer office hasn’t cleaned it up and moved in.
I’m not interested in the building, not so much, although the companion building is a century-old dry goods store, now an office space. The bottom floor of the “Cactus Hotel” is now a menagerie of restaurants, with Big Red and Barbacoa every day being a personal favorite.
There’s slow decline, the fading, the old ways die off, sooner or later. Some history, eventually, gets plowed under in the name of progress.
Back when it was still, Cactus Hot.