Seguin: Named for a Tejano Hero

On August twelfth, eighteen thirty-eight, thirty-three Gonzales Rangers laid out a townsite near a branch of the Guadalupe River and called it Walnut Springs. Six months later, in February eighteen thirty-nine, the Republic of Texas Congress renamed it Seguin in honor of Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, a Tejano officer who had fought for Texas independence at the Battle of San Jacinto and served as mayor of San Antonio. It was a meaningful choice at a time when the new republic's relationship with its Tejano population was already fraying.

Guadalupe County was organized around Seguin in the mid eighteen forties, soon after Texas became a state. The town later became known for producing a surprising number of concrete structures in the eighteen eighties and nineties, earning it the nickname the Mother of Concrete in Texas.