Gonzales, TX, USA - April 29, 2026 - Austin Film Crew, led by founder John Franklin Rinehart, has donated more than $70,000 in tourism branding, website development, mobile app development, photography, video, and digital strategy work to the City of Gonzales.
The donation follows a period of more than a year in which Gonzales operated without a functioning tourism website, leaving the city without a central digital platform to promote its events, lodging, dining, history, and local attractions.
John Franklin Rinehart, founder of Austin Film Crew and the team behind Texas Legacy in Lights, said the project was created to help restore a strong tourism presence for Gonzales and provide the city with a modern platform to move forward.
"The city needed a tourism presence again," said Rinehart. "Gonzales has too much history, too much character, and too much to offer to be left without a strong digital front door. We stepped in, built it, and donated it because the city needed a solution."
Tiffany Hutchinson-Padilla, Executive Director of the Gonzales Main Street Program, emphasized the importance of the new platform for the community’s future.
"This is a meaningful step forward for Gonzales," said Hutchinson-Padilla. "Having a dedicated tourism platform allows us to better showcase our history, support our local businesses, and welcome visitors in a way that reflects the true spirit of our community. This gives us the tools we need to grow and share Gonzales with a much wider audience."
The new tourism platform includes a fully custom website, original branding assets, professional photography and video, and companion mobile applications designed to support Gonzales across both web and mobile environments. The system was built to present Gonzales as a destination for heritage tourism, events, local business, and visitor engagement.
The website is scheduled to officially launch on May 1. Visitors will be able to explore Gonzales’ attractions, events, and local businesses at https://discovergonzalestx.com.
The project was developed after the previous tourism website was no longer available to the city, leaving Gonzales without an active digital tourism presence. Public comments at City Council meetings also highlighted concerns regarding access to prior tourism materials and broader questions of transparency, stewardship, and public benefit in relation to community tourism assets.
Rather than allow the city to remain without a tourism platform, Austin Film Crew developed a replacement system from the ground up and is donating it to Gonzales.
"This was about giving the city something real, something useful, and something worthy of Gonzales," Rinehart said. "We just finished building Texas Legacy in Lights, and we believe strongly in what Gonzales can become as a destination. This was one more step toward helping the city tell its story the right way."
With the launch of the new website and mobile app, Gonzales will once again have a dedicated tourism platform to support the promotion of its heritage, attractions, events, businesses, and visitor experience.
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