[4] Seguin's economy is primarily supported by a regional hospital, as well as the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation water-utility, that supplies the surrounding Greater San Antonio areas from nearby aquifers as far as Gonzales County.
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.
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.
The early visitors may have come to gather pecans, because the native trees bearing the tasty nut thrive in the river bottoms of the Guadalupe.
[20] 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.
A son, William Philip King, reportedly was part of a cannon crew and was the youngest defender killed during the Battle of the Alamo.
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.
[26] 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[27] and Adrian Woll.
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.
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.
[34] Many Germans en route heard of the hard times in those Hill Country settlements and decided instead to buy land and settle around Seguin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In 1912, citizens of Seguin lured a struggling church school to the city with cash, and 15 acres of land donated by Louis Fritz.
Under the leadership of the popular mayor, Max Starcke, Seguin was transformed, with a new post office, a new Art Deco City Hall, courthouse, jailhouse and fountain in Central Park, new storm sewers and sidewalks, and a small park along Walnut Branch, with rustic stone walls that protected the historic springs and traced the route of the stagecoach as it headed west through town.
The park featured a handsome Art Deco recreation building designed by Hugman[41] (now offices) with changing rooms for the swimming pool.
Dozens of groups and individuals made contributions to build the park that the town named for its popular mayor, who was moving on to, and soon to head, the Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin.
After World War II, entrepreneurs fresh out of the university used electric furnaces to melt scrap into reinforcing bars with a company then called Structural Metals.
The minimill (now CMC Steel) has been joined by manufacturers including Alamo Group, building roadside mowing equipment; Schaeffler (was Vitesco Technologies, Continental Automotive Systems, originally Motorola), making electronic powertrain control modules and emissions sensors; Hexcel, producing reinforcements for composites using glass fiber, carbon fiber, aramids, and specialty yarns;[42] Minigrip, manufacturing re-closeable plastic bags for food and home storage; Tyson Foods, processing chicken.
Then cold fronts pushing down from the north usually trigger precipitation and make October a rainy month, bringing "a second spring" of wildflowers.
The U.S. Air Force's 12th Flying Training Wing operates an airfield for practice approaches and touch-and-go landings, known as Randolph AFB Auxiliary Field/Seguin Field.
Normally unattended, it is supported by a manned runway supervisor unit and aircraft rescue and fire fighting vehicles when conducting flight operations.
[49] The Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation, half owned by each city, was created in 1998 to develop and operate a wholesale water supply system.
He was noted for helping to get the State of Texas to restore the 19th century mansion called Sebastopol and operate it as a Historic Site for 25 years.
The performance index-based rating system applies one of two labels to districts and public schools across the state: Met Standard or Improvement Required.
Seguin's Economic Development Corp. also funds its Manufacturing Technology Academy, which offers dual credit courses and internships for high-school juniors and seniors.
[citation needed] The Guadalupe Regional Medical Center (GMRC) doubled in size following a $100 million expansion, with 750 employees supporting 65 physician specialists.
Teatro is a non-profit organization that promotes a better understanding of the Mexican American culture by the study, teaching, practice, and performance of the arts and has called Seguin, Texas home all 40 years.