Magnolia Hotel (Seguin, Texas)
| Magnolia Hotel | |
|---|---|
 |
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| General information | |
| Status | Restoration |
| Type | Hotel |
| Location | Seguin, Texas, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 29°34′05″N 97°57′46″W / 29.5680°N 97.9627°WCoordinates: 29°34′05″N 97°57′46″W / 29.5680°N 97.9627°W |
| Opening | 1847 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 2 |
| Lifts/elevators | 0 |
The Magnolia Hotel is a historic structure located in Seguin, Texas. It was in operation as a hotel as early as 1844. In 2013, the structure came under new ownership and is in the process of being restored for use as a private residence. The building had been in poor repair for a number of years and was added to a list of the most endangered historic places in Texas in 2012. Was visted by the Ghost Adventures tv show. .r
During the Republic of Texas, a two-room log cabin in Seguin, Texas, sheltered travelers on the frontier as early as 1844, and became known as the Magnolia Hotel. An adjoining concrete building was erected by early 1847. Then a larger, two-story frame building replaced the log cabin by 1853.
The Magnolia Hotel was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey (H.A.B.S.) in 1934, and contributes to the Seguin Commercial Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Magnolia's limecrete section was built by John Park, a chemist and doctor who experimented with concrete after moving to Seguin in 1846. The hotel was probably the first 'Park's concrete' building in town, and is surely the oldest still standing. Park's work, with his imitators and rivals, led to Seguin having the largest concentration of mid-19th century concrete structures in the United States.
The dating of the concrete hotel is established because Captain Jack Hays, "perhaps the most famous Texas Ranger" according to Willie Mae Weinert's Authentic History of Guadalupe County, married Susan Calvert, daughter of Jeremiah Calvert, the hotel's owner, "in the south room of the concrete portion of the hotel on April 29, 1847, Rev. John M. McCulloch presiding."
Park's concrete building was next to a two-room cabin built of logs originally gathered by Seguin citizens to build a stockade as defense against possible Indian raids. The logs were instead sold to Texas Ranger James Campbell, and his cabin became the point of defense. The two-story frame building that now sits atop the large basement, replacing the Campbell cabin, dates from the early 1850s. It shows graceful Greek Revival symmetry and detailing around the door, and a roof line similar to that of the concrete house known as Sebastopol built 1854-56.
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