The Magnolia Hotel began in 1840 as a two-room log cabin built by Texas Ranger James Campbell, co-founder of Seguin. About 1844, a rear three-room adobe limecrete structure was added, and it became Seguin's first frontier hotel and stagecoach stop. It was also the site where Texas Ranger John Coffee Hays married Susan Calvert, daughter of the prominent hotel owner. A stone stump still remains where servants stood to announce the arrival of the stagecoach or a pending Indian attack by ringing the once Alamo bell. Because Indian raids continued until 1855, an underground safety shelter was dug out by hand beneath the main building, and it also served as the town's first jail. In 1852, a second story was added, creating the finest ten-room hotel in the area. After the town survived attacks from the Mexican Army, Comanche Indians, and the perils of the Civil War, the hotel regained its luster in 1875 when the first railroad arrived in Seguin. It became a resting stop for thousands of early settlers to Central Texas and the town's main social gathering point until the late 1900's. In 1936, after falling into disrepair, it was sold and turned into a private boarding house and residence, remaining out of public use for many years. In 2013, Jim Ghedi and Erin Wallace Ghedi purchased the property and began restoring it to its former glory. Over the 175 years of the hotel's existence, thousands of guests checked into the Magnolia Hotel, and many say some of them never checked out.