What happened to the Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery? A history of Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery explored by Mixerr Reviews.

A few people have been wondering what has happened to the Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery. Not much information about this cemetery can be discovered. This news article will explain what happened to the Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery.

Guadalupe County Poor Farm had a cemetery called Poor Farm Cemetery. A cemetery was plotted on private property near Geronimo Creek in the 1400 block of East Kingsbury Street in Seguin, Texas sometime during the 1890s. All the paupers, convicts, and indigents of Guadalupe County Poor Farm and Guadalupe County Convict Farm were placed on this land outside of the city. Burials included those who lived in the area as well. Even those from Wilson County. (Ref: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/20123839/)


William Johnston owned the property where the poor farm cemetery was located in 1891. 1892 was the year William Johnston sold the property to Guadalupe County for the establishment of a poor farm, convict farm, and a cemetery which would become Guadalupe County Poor Farm. He sold 202 acres of land to Guadalupe County for the purpose of housing prisoners from the area. (Ref: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4208684/guadalupe-county-v-johnston)

According to local historian, B.J. Comingore, the last public hanging in Guadalupe County took place at the poor farm in 1915. Historian Joe Bruns Sr. explained that his brothers had witnessed several of the hanging executions at the convict farm at the old tree where now sits the wagon. The convict was buried in Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery. The burial was later removed to an unknown location.

Sometime during the 1920s is when Guadalupe County sold the property to Herm Dietz. Herm Dietz owned the cemetery property in 1927. Herm Dietz sold the property to Edward Nolle sometime in the early 1930s.

On March 31, 1937, Edward Nolle transferred 31 acres of the property were to Guadalupe County to be used as a poor farm which was called Guadalupe County Poor Farm.(Ref: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/20123839/)


When Guadalupe County Poor Farm and Guadalupe County Convict Farm were shut down in 1941, the cemetery fell into disrepair. Gravestone in the cemetery were overlooked as they were soon enough  overgrown with grass. Not much county oversight was done with this cemetery. None of the family members of the inmates were ever contacted about the cemetery. The paupers were returned to their hometowns.

Arthur Schmidt purchased some of the land from Guadalupe County in 1941. Arthur Schmidt later owned the property including the cemetery. The cemetery property was later sold to Melvin Pomerantz. Melvin Pomerantz owned the cemetery property before passing on the land to his family members.

In 2001, M. S. Taylor along with a handful of volunteers, rediscovered the Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery while searching for the cemetery on the Melvin Pomerantz property. The only gravestone and burial discovered to be remaining from the Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery was the burial of a German immigrant Henry Steindorf. He died in 1911. His gravestone is the only known marker signifying the prior existence of Guadalupe County Poor Farm. There may have been there other graves to the burials there. A brown church stone constructed at his burial is what remains. (Ref: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154744096/henry-steindorf).



Today Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery is now gone. So are the fence and markers. The property now belongs to the Melvin Pomerantz family. (Ref: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2410574/poor-farm-cemetery)

Wanda Qualls and M. S. Taylor have been working with the Guadalupe County Historical Society in an effort to get Guadalupe County Poor Farm registered with TxDot so they won't build highways on cemeteries and graveyards. (Ref: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~txguadal/cem/PoorFarm/PoorFarmCem.html)

Guadalupe County failed to properly preserve and protect this cemetery by letting the cemetery to be neglected. The markers should have been saved and relocated to another cemetery. The county can be blamed for failing to protect this cemetery.


Guadalupe County Poor Farm Cemetery was located at 1400 East Kingsbury Street, Seguin, Texas, US 78155.