page_title: Walnut Springs Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Walnut Springs Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: I took photo of San Antonio under "City Beautiful movement" at Witte Museum, with Canon camera.
context_page_description: Walnut Springs Park in Seguin, Texas is a network of walkways and bridges along the banks of Walnut Branch, a small tributary of the Guadalupe River. The stream is fed by various small springs. The main one near Court St. was filled in for parking, but the water still trickles out from the beneath the fill.
  The park is an important part of the city's urban fabric and a historic attraction in its own right.
context_section_description: The town of Seguin was founded in 1838 just a few blocks from the springs. Many of the earliest and then some of the best homes erected in the 19th century were along Walnut Branch, which provided clean water for animals, laundry, and cleaning. Sebastopol House State Historic Site is one of several early concrete homes surviving from before the Civil War.
  In the late 1920s, plans for a park came into play under Seguin's Mayor Max Starcke. San Antonio native and environmental architect Robert Hugman submitted his ideas for what would become Walnut Springs Park.
  Federal depression-relief funds became available in the spring of 1933 to beautify the stream and create a park. The project was planned by Hugman, the architect who later designed the San Antonio River Walk, which was completed by the Works Progress Administration in 1941. Hugman was also the designer of Max Starcke Park, Seguin's much larger park along the Guadalupe River, which was built by the National Youth Administration and dedicated in 1938. Many of the elements seen in the River Walk were given tryouts along Walnut Branch and in Starcke Park.
  In June 1933, workmen from the Civilian Conservation Corps, which had a small camp south of town, began building walkways and bridges along Walnut Branch and lining the slopes of the waterway with curving stone retaining walls. Dams crossed by stepping stones, low falls, and quiet pools were built along the natural course of the waterway that passes along the edge of the city's downtown. The former stagecoach route was also marked with stone walls, from Market Street (now Donegan) to Market Street (now Nolte). Landscaping was minimal, due to the native trees in place and the natural beauty of the location, but included ferns, elephant ears, and umbrella plants, which like boggy soil. Most of the park is about two stories lower than the streets of downtown, which with the humidity from the flowing stream and shade from the tree canopy creates its own microclimate.
caption: The early design of Robert Hugman
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