Spring 2017

Artifacts dating from the Archaic era have
been found in the Guadalupe River valley,
suggesting that the area has supported
human habitation for several thousand
years. The peoples encountered by early
explorers belonged to the Tonkawa, Waco,
Lipan Apache, and Karankawa Indians. These
early inhabitants were gradually displaced
by settlers from Mexico, Europe, and the
United States. European settlement along
the Guadalupe began as early as the 1720s,
when the Spanish established several
missions above the site of present Victoria.
In 1755 the short-lived San Xavier Mission
was established near San Marcos Springs.
For a brief time in 1808 a settlement grew
up at the intersection of the Guadalupe
River and the Old San Antonio Road, but
flooding and the threat of Indian raids made
the site untenable. Settlements of a more
permanent nature along the Guadalupe
were not long in coming, however. Martín De
León established Victoria near the mouth
of the river in 1824, and in 1825 James Kerr
founded Gonzales 60 miles further upstream,
where on the south bank a historic marker
has been placed to commemorate the firing
of the first shot for Texas independence in
the battle of Gonzales (October 2, 1835).
During the 1830s some 30 or 40 families
homesteaded along the banks of the lower
Guadalupe, which was an early boundary of
the Power and Hewetson colony. Settlement
farther upriver increased in the late 1830s.
Seguin (then called Walnut Springs) was
surveyed by Benjamin McCulloch in 1839,
and New Braunfels was founded in 1845 by a
group of German settlers led by Prince Carl
of Solms-Braunfels. In 1856 Kerrville was
established on the upper Guadalupe. The
construction of railroads through the middle
and upper Guadalupe valley in the 1880s
brought large numbers of new residents to
the area. Kerrville, Comfort, Luling, and Cuero
were among the small communities on the
Guadalupe that prospered with the arrival of
the railroads.
Projects to make the Guadalupe navigable
were approved by the Mexican government
in the late 1820s and early 1830s, but these
were interrupted by the Texas Revolution.
Some improvements to the lower reaches of
the river were authorized by the Republic of
Texas in the 1840s and by the Texas legislature
LANDMAGAZINES.COM
17