Seguin, Texas

How Seguin is governed

Form of government not yet listed.

1 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

  • Donna Dodgen per Wikidata

  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

seguintexas.gov

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Population over time

From 25,175 in 2010 to 29,433 in 2020 (+16.9%).

History

Seguin was the home of Dr. John E. Park, who experimented in construction using concrete made from local materials. The nearly 100 structures—the courthouse, schools, churches, homes, cisterns, walls, etc.—made up the largest concentration of early 19th-century concrete buildings in the United States. About 20 of them remain standing.

The use of concrete largely ended when the railroad arrived in 1876, bringing cheap lumber and the equipment needed for brickmaking. The town had five brickworks, and the wooden buildings of downtown were completely replaced with brick by the beginning of World War I.

For almost 100 years, the town was dependent on the rich surrounding farmland and ranches. Then, the Texas oil boom came just as the Great Depression was taking down other towns and cities. The town commemorated its centennial by opening Max Starcke Park, with a golf course, a pavilion, picnic tables, and BBQ pits along a scenic river drive, and a curving dam that created a waterfall.

To preserve some of the historic character of the town, Seguin became one of the state's first Main Street cities, and the downtown district was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Fine homes by leading architects J. Reily Gordon, Solon McAdoo, Leo M.J. Dielman, Atlee B. Ayers, and Marvin Eickenroht dating from the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be found on many streets. However, the city does not have any officially designated historic residential districts.

The postwar era had industrial development, including a small mill that turned scrap metal into construction products.

In 1972, Motorola built a plant to manufacture automotive electronics. It was bought by Continental AG in 2006, became Vitesco Technologies in 2021, acquired by Schaeffler in 2024, and is the city's largest employer with 1,750 employees. Caterpillar opened a diesel engine assembly plant in 2008 which is the second largest employer.

Prehistory

The Seguin area was once inhabited by the native hunter-gatherer Native Americans of Texas. An ongoing archeological dig indicates campgrounds dating back 10,000 years or so, with trade items from Mexico and Arizona. The early visitors may have come to gather pecans, because the native trees bearing the nut thrive in the river bottoms of the Guadalupe. By the time the first European explorers passed through, predominantly Tonkawas lived in the area, camping around the Guadalupe and other streams in the area. Eventually, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo settlers started farms and ranches in the location that became Seguin.

Early history

José Antonio Navarro, one of the earliest settlers and an important figure of Texas history, developed a ranch near Seguin. In 1831, land was granted to Umphries Branch by the Mexican government. The Branch and John Newton Sowell Sr. families settled in 1833 in the western part of Green DeWitt's colony. Sowell was a farmer, and in 1833, his brothers and he became the first Anglo-American immigrants to raise corn in future Guadalupe County.

Between 1827 and 1835, 22 families came to the area as part of the DeWitt Colony; by 1833, 40 land titles were in the region, 14 of which received grants directly from the Mexican government. In 1836, John Gladden King lived near Seguin. His farm neighbored the Sowells on the northwest and Branch on the southeast. A son, William Philip King, reportedly was part of a cannon crew and was the youngest defender killed during the Battle of the Alamo. These homesteads were abandoned in the Runaway Scrape.

Old Seguin

The town of Seguin was founded August 12, 1838, 16 months after Texas won its independence at the Battle of San Jacinto, making it one of the oldest towns in Texas. Members of Mathew Caldwell's Gonzales Rangers acquired land originally granted to Umphries Branch, who had departed during the Runaway Scrape and sold his land to Joseph S. Martin.

At this time, the Seguin area was a part of Gonzales County, the remaining portion known as present-day Belmont. The Rangers had found this was a good halfway stop between their patrol points. The grove of live oaks had become a familiar location. It had been maintained as a base camp by the Rangers since the early founding of the Dewitt Colony.

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 six months later to honor San Jacinto veteran and then a senator of the Republic of Texas, Juan Seguín. 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, runaway slaves and criminals were bound to an iron ring embedded in the tree, then whipped as a punishment.

Manuel Flores, veteran of San Jacinto and brother-in-law of Juan Seguin, established a ranch just south of Seguin in 1838. It became a safe-haven for San Antonio families and a staging point for counterattack when Bexar was overrun in 1842 by Santa Anna's forces under Ráfael Vásquez and Adrian Woll.

Leading the resistance forces from this location was Texas Ranger 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. He met Susan Calvert, whose father owned the Magnolia Hotel, where they married in April 1847.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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