Editing Seguin, Texas (section)

===19th century history===
Under an ancient live oak, 33 Rangers signed the charter for the town. Many were surveyors who joined Joseph Martin in laying out the lots for the town. Its original name was Walnut Springs, but was changed just 6 months later to honor San Jacinto veteran and then a Senator of the [[Republic of Texas]], [[Juan Seguín]].<ref name="tsha1" /> The surveyors' plan for the city included a main north–south street that ran straight and flat for a mile and more. The streets form a grid, around a central square of two blocks, today's Courthouse Square and Central Park, formerly known as Market Square.

A tree called the Whipping Oak grows across from the courthouse. In the 19th century, [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|runaway slaves]] as well as criminals were bound to an iron ring embedded in the tree, then whipped as a punishment.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tfsweb.tamu.edu/websites/famoustreesoftexas/TreeLayout.aspx?pageid=16172 |title=Whipping Oak |date= |website=Famous Trees of Texas |publisher=Texas A&M Forest Service |access-date=July 24, 2021 |quote=On the side of one oak a 3-inch iron ring, still usable, is embedded in the tree about five feet from the ground. It was to this ring that the prisoners were tied for punishment. The precise manner in which they were secured is not known, but the number of lashes was always prescribed by the court.}}</ref>

[[Manuel N. Flores|Manuel Flores]], veteran of [[Battle of San Jacinto|San Jacinto]] and brother-in-law of Juan Seguin, established a ranch just south of Seguin in 1838.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/flores-manuel-1801-1868|title=TSHA &#124; Flores, Manuel [1801–1868]|website=www.tshaonline.org}}</ref> It became a safe-haven for [[San Antonio]] families and a staging point for counterattack when Bexar was overrun in 1842 by [[Antonio López de Santa Anna|Santa Anna]]'s forces under [[Ráfael Vásquez (Mexican general)|Ráfael Vásquez]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/vasquez-rafael|title=TSHA &#124; Vásquez, Ráfael|website=www.tshaonline.org}}</ref> and [[Adrian Woll]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mexican-invasions-of-1842|title=TSHA &#124; Mexican Invasions of 1842|website=www.tshaonline.org}}</ref>

Leading the resistance forces from this location was [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Ranger]] [[John Coffee Hays|John Coffee "Jack" Hays]]. When duty allowed, Hays was a familiar resident of Seguin. In 1843, Hays set up a gathering point at the "Walnut Branch Ranger Station in Seguin, where the classic Ranger character was born.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/Defense.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101009211319/http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/Defense.htm|url-status=dead|title=''Ranger James W. Nichols Journal'', 1843|archive-date=October 9, 2010}}</ref> He met Susan Calvert, whose father owned the [[Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)|Magnolia Hotel]], where they married in April 1847.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/magnolia-hotel-seguin|title=TSHA &#124; Magnolia Hotel, Seguin|website=www.tshaonline.org}}</ref>

Serving under Hays were two other famous Ranger residents of Seguin: [[Henry Eustace McCulloch|Henry]] and [[Ben McCulloch]]. Their home known as "[[Hardscramble]]" still stands and was designated a Texas State Centennial historic site in 1936.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.texas-settlement.org/markers/guadalupe/22.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706101814/http://www.texas-settlement.org/markers/guadalupe/22.html|url-status=usurped|title=Hardscramble|archive-date=July 6, 2008|website=www.texas-settlement.org}}</ref> Colonel [[James Clinton Neill]], commander of the Alamo, was known to be buried here. The site was also historically marked during the 1936 [[Texas Centennial Exposition]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.texas-settlement.org/markers/guadalupe/40.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071110051518/http://www.texas-settlement.org/markers/guadalupe/40.html|url-status=usurped|title=
Neill, Colonel James Clinton|archive-date=November 10, 2007|website=www.texas-settlement.org}}</ref>

Seguin was named the county seat, and Guadalupe County was organized, early in 1845, as Texas became a state. The first county judge was [[Michael H. Erskine]]. The town was incorporated in 1853, and a city government was organized under acting Mayor John R. King, until elections were held later that year and John D. Anderson became the first elected mayor.

A few years later, another town was laid out on the west side of Seguin, on land that had been titled by the Alamo defender [[Thomas R. Miller]], and sold in 1840 to Ranger James Campbell in partnership with [[Arthur Swift]] and Andrew Neill.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org//innerresidents3.htm|title=Residents-Gonzales Town-Surnames O-Z|website=www.sonsofdewittcolony.org}}</ref> This area became part of Seguin within a few years, but 150 years later, the east–west streets still do not match up to cross through the old Guadalupe Street border.

When [[Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels]] and his German colonists were making their way in 1845 to the land they had bought to settle, Calvin Turner and Asa Sowell from Seguin were hired to guide them. Later, Seguin became a stopping point and trade center for German immigrants along their route from the ports of [[Indianola, Texas|Indianola]] and [[Galveston, Texas|Galveston]] to the German settlements around [[New Braunfels, Texas|New Braunfels]] and [[Fredericksburg, Texas|Fredericksburg]].<ref>Wolff, Linda. ''Indianola and Matagorda Island 1837–1887''. Eakin Press, Austin, Texas, 1999.</ref> Many Germans ''en route'' heard of the hard times in those Hill Country settlements and decided instead to buy land and settle around Seguin.

After Texas became a state, many settlers arrived from the Old South, bringing in hundreds of slaves in total, though only a few plantation owners held more than a dozen slaves. Most of the slaves lived on small farms with their owners, who remained subsistence farmers for years after settling their land. The contributions of African Americans to building the community are all but ignored in local histories written during the period when slavery was still being excused as justifiable due to the alleged low development of those enslaved. In fact, for the first 50 years or so, and probably for the first 100 years of the town, blacks did most of the construction work, including the main concrete buildings such as Sebastopol. <!-- (see below) -->

Education was important to the town. By 1849, it chartered a school. The first schoolhouse was built in 1850; it burned and was soon replaced by a two-story limecrete building. This Guadalupe High School, now a part of the St James parochial school, was recognized by a historical marker in 1962 as the oldest continuously used school building in Texas.

Seguin was home to [[John Park (inventor)|Dr. John E. Park]]'s concrete ([[limecrete]]). Called "the Mother of Concrete Cities" in the 1870s, the town once had nearly 100 structures made of limecrete, including the courthouse, schools, churches, houses, cisterns, and many walls. So many limecrete walls and corrals were built that Seguin gave the effect of being a walled city. This was the largest and most significant concentration of 19th-century concrete buildings in the U.S.<ref name="Hauser"/> About 20 of these vintage buildings survive today.

In 1857, [[Frederick Law Olmsted]], later famous as the landscape architect of New York's [[Central Park]], toured Texas, writing dispatches to the ''[[New York Times]]''. Olmsted exclaimed at the concrete structures he found here, almost on the edge of the frontier, and described the city as "the prettiest town in Texas."

One surviving concrete home, the [[Sebastopol House State Historic Site|Sebastopol House]];<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/sebastopol/ |title=TPWD: Former TPWD Parks |publisher=Tpwd.state.tx.us |access-date=December 18, 2015}}</ref> built in 1856, is a [[Texas Historical Commission]] landmark and is on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] due to its unusual limecrete construction and architectural style.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/park-information/former-tpwd-parks|title=Former TPWD Operated Parks — Texas Parks & Wildlife Department|website=tpwd.texas.gov}}</ref>

Stagecoaches began to serve the town in 1848, connecting coastal ports to San Antonio and points west. The Magnolia Hotel was an overnight stop for the exhausted, hungry, and dirt-covered riders. A young slave had the duty of standing on a stone to pull the bell rope alerting the community to the arrival of the stage, which brought visitors, the mail, newspapers, and special merchandise. Heading west from the Magnolia, the stage route went through town, passing the courthouse. Today, a mural commemorates its path. During the Great Depression, workers from the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] traced part of the route with stone walls, showing how it moved downhill, crossed Walnut Branch (a spring-fed tributary of the Guadalupe River), and climbed the other side.

The historic [[The Wilson Potteries|Wilson Pottery]] site is on Capote Road, near Seguin. The pottery was the first successful business in Texas owned and operated by freed slaves, beginning in 1869.<ref name="Wilson Pottery Foundation">{{Cite web|url=http://www.wilsonpotteryfoundation.org/family_legacy.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927210142/http://www.wilsonpotteryfoundation.org/family_legacy.htm|url-status=dead|title=Wilson Pottery Foundation|archive-date=September 27, 2007}}</ref>

During Reconstruction, the freed slaves in Seguin organized their own congregation, the Second Baptist Church, and in 1876, a school that came to be known as the Lincoln School. In 1887, they established [[Guadalupe College]], comparable to a junior college today, with a heavy concentration on vocational education. These institutions were begun with the help of Rev. Leonard Ilsley, an abolitionist minister from Maine, but William Baton Ball, himself an ex-slave, Union soldier in the Civil War, and former [[Buffalo Soldier]], became their leader. He was greatly assisted by his friend and benefactor [[George Brackenridge]] of San Antonio. (The main buildings of Guadalupe College burned due to a boiler malfunction during a bitterly cold night in 1936, and the college ended.)

The railroad reached Seguin in 1876'' en route ''to San Antonio, when the oldest railway in Texas, the [[Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad]], chartered on February 11, 1850, as the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway Company built the first Seguin depot. It became part of the [[Southern Pacific Railroad]], and now the main southern line of the [[Union Pacific]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/SEGUIN.htm |title=Texas Transportation Museum |access-date=June 4, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504054033/http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/SEGUIN.htm |archive-date=May 4, 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[John Ireland (politician)|John Ireland]] was mayor of Seguin in 1858. Elected the 18th Governor of Texas 1883–1887, he had an important part in the construction of the [[Texas State Capitol]]—insisting on using native stone, red granite from the Hill Country, instead of limestone imported from Indiana. He also presided over the opening of the [[University of Texas at Austin]].