Boerne, the county seat of Kendall County, is boundaried by Cibolo Creek, Interstate Highway 10, and U.S. Highway 87 some thirty miles northwest of San Antonio in the southern part of the county. In 1849 a group of German colonists from Bettina camped on the north side of Cibolo Creek, about a mile west of present-day Boerne. They called their new community Tusculum, after Cicero's home in ancient Rome. In 1852 Gustav Theissen and John James laid out the town's site and changed the name to Boerne in honor of Ludwig Borne, a German poet and publicist. Ironically, Mr. Borne never visited the town that was named after him.