Casa Blanca
Floresville, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Home of Don Erasmo Seguin who died here; in 1856 by appointment of the Spanish governor he inducted Stephen F. Austin into Texas, 1821; Texas Deputy to the Mexican Congress, 1824; on October 13, 1834 in a convention in Bexar he made the first effort to organize a provisional government in Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This was the home of Erasmo Seguín, a leading figure in the transition of Texas from Spanish and Mexican rule toward its own independent identity. In 1821 he formally welcomed Stephen F. Austin, opening the door to Anglo-American colonization, and he later represented Texas in the Mexican Congress and pushed early on for self-government. From this house on the Wilson County frontier, a Tejano statesman helped shape the political ground on which Texas would be built.
Why it matters
Seguín embodies the Tejano leadership that made Anglo colonization of Texas possible, a reminder that the state's founding story is bound up with its Spanish and Mexican heritage.
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Related people
- · Erasmo Seguín
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Colonization of Texas
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
de la Zerda Cemetery
Floresville, TX
On a bluff above the San Antonio River, this cemetery served the vanished trading community of Lodi. Its namesake, Nemencio de la Zerda, Sr., born in San Antonio in 1808, was a rancher and former soldier under Tejano leader Juan Seguín who bought the land in 1839. The earliest marked grave dates to 1877, though older unmarked burials are believed to lie here, and Spanish-language headstones and interior fencing reflect its Mexican American heritage.
Site of Old Town: Lodi
Floresville, TX
By 1720 this land along the river was known as the country of the Cayopines, a Coahuiltecan people, and it became vital to the San Antonio missions, whose herds grazed here tended by herdsmen in adobe huts. Apache raids after 1731 drove those herdsmen to shelter at Mission Cabras, and the ground passed through Spanish ranchos and Canary Islander families before Anglo settler Stephen T. Cook opened a store in 1858 and named the place Lodi. Chosen county seat in 1867, Lodi lost that honor to Floresville in 1872 and reverted to ranching.
Floresville United Methodist Church
Floresville, TX
Methodists in Floresville organized their congregation in October 1875 at the home of the Agee family, with only six charter members and a circuit-riding minister as their first pastor. In the early years they worshiped wherever they could—homes, the county courthouse, a private academy—before completing a sanctuary in 1885 that a storm soon destroyed. Rebuilt and merged over the years with neighboring congregations, the church has served this Wilson County seat for well over a century.
First Baptist Church of Floresville
Floresville, TX
The Rev. John Washburn came from Illinois to Texas in 1877 and soon settled in Floresville to lead the Floresville Academy, and it was there in August 1878 that some twenty charter members gathered at the Wilson County Courthouse to organize this Baptist fellowship. For its first decade the congregation worshipped in the courthouse before buying land — once part of the vast Arocha league grants — and raising a simple 40-by-60-foot church in 1889. The building was enlarged and rebuilt across the following century as the congregation grew.