Juan Seguin School
Seguin, Guadalupe County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Guadalupe County was home to a number of rural schools for the area’s burgeoning population of students of Mexican descent. In addition to those already living here, immigrants came from Mexico in the early 20th century, fleeing for safety during that country’s revolution. In 1902, the local school board, under the leadership of the city of Seguin, passed a motion to establish a separate school for Mexican children. Juan Seguin School, opened in 1903, was an early model of a segregated urban school for children of Mexican heritage. Students first met in a home owned by William Greifenstein, whom the Seguin City Council paid monthly for the house’s use. In 1906, William Blumberg arranged with the city council to build a school house on North Pecan Street (later East Cedar Street). By 1915, the city began to make efforts to secure a permanent site for the school. In 1916, an independent school district was established and along with this effort, a bond for raising money to purchase a site for the Mexican school was put to vote. Though defeated, a bond the next year was successful, and in 1918, Mexican Public School Ward #2, as it was then known, was built on the corner of Dolle and Medlin Streets. Grades one through six attended the school. More classrooms were added to the original one-room structure, and by 1948, the school had several rooms, an office, and an auditorium. Juan Seguin School merged with Lizzie M. Burges School in 1971, before the campus became one school again in 1975. Juan Seguin Elementary School closed in 2010. However, its impact remains felt through the generations of students that attended and its success as an institution where Hispanic students received an education. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As Mexican and Mexican American families filled Guadalupe County in the early 20th century—many fleeing the Mexican Revolution—Seguin's school board voted in 1902 to open a separate school for their children. Juan Seguin School began in 1903 in a rented house and, after failed and then successful bond votes, moved into a permanent building in 1918, growing over decades from one room to a full campus with an auditorium. It merged and reorganized through the 1970s before Juan Seguin Elementary finally closed in 2010.
Why it matters
The school is a tangible record of the segregation of Mexican American children in Texas—and of the generations who nonetheless gained an education within its walls.
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Related people
- · William Greifenstein
- · William Blumberg
Themes & tags
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