The county seat of Guadalupe County, Seguin was laid out in 1838 and originally was named Walnut Springs. It was renamed in 1839 in honor of Texas patriot Juan N. Seguin, who captained the only Tejano (Texas-born Mexicans) unit to fight at the battle of San Jacinto and served in the senate of the Republic of Texas. When Frederick Law Olmsted visited the town in the mid-1850s, he considered it to be the prettiest town he had seen in Texas, commenting in A Journey Through Texas (1859) that the streets had been laid in an irregular pattern so as to avoid damaging the large oak trees already present on the townsite. In the 1920s, oil was discovered in the eastern section of Guadalupe County, but agriculture remains the county's main industry. By the 1980s, almost 50 percent of the residents were employed outside the county and its population continues to rise as people from San Antonio have chosen to move here.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.