Floresville

Floresville, the county seat of Wilson County, is at the junction of U.S. Highway 181 and State Highway 97, thirty miles southeast of San Antonio in the central portion of the county. The area was settled by Canary Island immigrant Don Francisco Flores de Abrego, who established a ranch headquarters six miles northwest of the site of present Floresville in the eighteenth century. In 1833 the nucleus of the town included the Flores home, a chapel, and a graveyard. The community was called Lodi and served as the Wilson County seat from 1867 to March 1871, and again from July 1871 to 1873. In 1867 Floresville, named for the Flores family, was founded; its site included part of the area known as Lodi. In the early 1870s a townsite was surveyed and laid out. At that time a prominent citizen, Andrew G. Pickett, who owned a ranch with an irrigation system, started raising peanuts. A Floresville post office was established in 1872. In November 1873 county voters made Floresville the county seat. In the 1870s Floresville Academy offered several levels of education. Development accelerated in 1883, when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway announced plans to construct a line through the town. By 1885 Floresville had two hotels, several stores, a weekly newspaper named the Chronicle, two steam cotton gin-gristmills, and a population of 400. The town was incorporated in 1890, when the reported population was 1,500. A five-teacher school was in operation by 1896, when it had an enrollment of 206.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.