Gonzales was founded in August 1825 when empresario Green DeWitt's surveyor, James Kerr, selected the junction of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers as the site for the capital of DeWitt's colony, one of the empresario grants authorized under Mexican colonization law. Kerr laid out the townsite and named it for Rafael Gonzales, provisional governor of Coahuila y Texas. Gonzales functioned as the colony's administrative and land-office headquarters, the place where colonists registered claims, conducted local government business, and traded goods and supplies; a formal ayuntamiento, or town council, was established there in 1832 to manage local affairs such as ferry operations. Growth was slow at first, with only about fifteen residents by 1826, but the town expanded steadily after 1828, reaching roughly thirty-two structures by 1836. Gonzales became widely known as the flashpoint of the Texas Revolution, where colonists refused to surrender a small cannon to Mexican troops in October 1835, and the town was later evacuated and burned during the Runaway Scrape. Today Gonzales serves as the seat of Gonzales County, a small Texas city that preserves its colonial and revolutionary history through numerous historical markers, museums, and the famous Come and Take It cannon, drawing heritage tourists interested in the origins of DeWitt's colony and the opening events of Texas independence.