Juan Seguin School

Guadalupe County had a number of rural schools serving a growing population of students of Mexican descent, including immigrants who came from Mexico in the early 20th century for safety during that country’s revolution. In 1902, the local school board under the leadership of the city of Seguin approved a separate school for Mexican children, and Juan Seguin School opened in 1903 as an early model of a segregated urban school for children of Mexican heritage. Students first met in a home owned by William Greifenstein, which the Seguin City Council rented monthly, and in 1906 William Blumberg arranged with the city council to build a schoolhouse on North Pecan Street, later East Cedar Street. By 1915, the city was trying to secure a permanent site, and after an independent school district was established in 1916, a bond to buy a site for the Mexican school was proposed; though it failed that year, a bond passed the next year, and in 1918 Mexican Public School Ward #2 was built at Dolle and Medlin Streets. Serving grades one through six, the school expanded from a one-room structure to several rooms, an office, and an auditorium by 1948. It merged with Lizzie M. Burges School in 1971, became one school again in 1975, and Juan Seguin Elementary School closed in 2010, while its impact continued through generations of students and its success as a place where Hispanic students received an education.

Seguin, Texas · United States