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 July 10, 2008 | Guadalupe County Courthouse Texas County Courthouse Project #9: Guadalupe County (Seguin, Texas) In 1689 Spanish explorer Alonso De León carried with him a standard depicting the Lady of Guadalupe. In Her honor, he named the Guadalupe river. In 1846 Guadalupe County was formed, taking its name from the river that runs through it. Originally called Walnut Springs, the future county seat of Guadulupe County changed its name to Seguin in February of 1839 in honor of Juan Seguín. A Tejano (Texas born Hispanic), Juan Seguín found himself at the Alamo as Santa Anna’s army reached San Antonio. He was sent out as a courier and escaped the eventual fall of the mission. He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto and eventually found his way back to San Antonio where he organized the burial of the Alamo dead. Seguín was the only Tejano to serve in the Republic of Texas Senate. The 1939 moderne style courthouse is nothing special, except for the large pecan out front…the world’s second largest pecan to be exact. (It used to be the largest until a bigger pecan was proudly unveiled in Missouri) Why a pecan? Well, in 1529 when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca found himself stranded and lost in Texas he was captured and made a slave by Mariame Indians near the lower reaches of the Guadalupe river. While there he observed a grove of pecan trees near the river. Having never seen pecan trees before Cabeza de Vaca wrote about the “River of Nuts”, thus putting down on paper the first ever reference to pecans. “River of Nuts” probably applies more to the current state of the river than it did back then as thousands of drunk Texans float down along the slow moving currents of the Guadalupe year round. Anyway, the pecan monument was placed by the Guadalupe Pecan Growers Association in 1978 to “commemorate the first recorded contribution to the pecan literature.” 
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