Seguin Commercial Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Seguin's downtown business district was enlarged to take in nine more historic buildings in three areas beside the original boundary, and its period of significance now runs to 1953. The additions include the 1934 Old Seguin Post Office, designed under Treasury Supervising Architect Louis A. Simon; the 1851 Baxter-Fennell-Tips House, a Texas Greek Revival home; four c.1930 cottages known as Tips Court; two small commercial buildings from about 1915 and 1930; and a Mission Style church built about 1877 and reshaped by 1916. The church is one of the last 19th-century concrete buildings in the district. Seguin was once called "Concrete City" for its widespread cast-concrete construction. The district records the town's rise as a regional trade center, from the 1840s building boom through the railroad's arrival in 1877 and into the early 1950s. A 2003 resurvey also reclassified several buildings, such as the Palace Theater and the 1949 Masonic Lodge, as contributing.