El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail | |
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Location | Texas, Louisiana; USA |
Nearest city | Natchitoches, LA (start) & Laredo, TX |
Established | 2004 |
Governing body | National Park Service |
Website | El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail |
The El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail is a national historic trail covering the U.S. section of El Camino Real de Los Tejas, a thoroughfare from the 18th-century Spanish colonial era in Spanish Texas, instrumental in the settlement, development, and history of Texas. The National Park Service designated El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail as a unit in the National Trails System in 2004.
The modern highways Texas 21 (along with Texas OSR) and Louisiana 6 roughly follow the original route of the trail. [1]
Alonso de León, Spanish governor of Coahuila, established the corridor for what became El Camino Real de Tierra Afuera in multiple expeditions to East Texas between 1686 and 1690 to find and destroy a French fort near Lavaca Bay, [2] established by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle on what de León considered to be Spanish lands. The route was refined in 1691-1692 by Domingo Terán de los Ríos, the first governor of Spanish Texas, in an effort to make better connections to the Spanish missions in East Texas. San Antonio de Bexar, founded in 1718, was the first of many communities built as way stations on the trail. [3]
After Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821, immigrants from the American colonies invited to Texas used the corridor to travel to their settlements. A section of the road called Camino Arriba by the Spanish became known as the Old San Antonio Road. The growth of towns such as Austin, Galveston, and Houston not on the original route, along with the building of railroads, changed the direction of travel and trade and the use of El Camino Real de los Tejas diminished.
The historic trail ran from the capitol and central Viceroyalty of New Spain—present day Mexico City—winding through Saltillo, Monterrey, Laredo (on the modern Texas border), San Antonio, and Nacogdoches, before reaching the Louisiana border at the Sabine River. The river crossing was a ferry, in use since around 1795, as the Chabanan Ferry. James Taylor Gaines purchased the ferry in 1819, and it became known as the Gaines Ferry. Gaines sold the ferry in 1843 and at some point it began to be called Pendleton's Ferry. [4] The ferry remained in service until being replaced by the Gaines-Pendleton Bridge in 1937.
After crossing the river, the trail went through the Neutral Strip and Many, Louisiana, before ending at Natchitoches in modern Louisiana. [5] The trail has a 2,500-mile length. For centuries, the Native Americans had used the trail routes for trading between the Great Plains and Chihuahuan Desert regions and essentially created the road. El Camino Real de Los Tejas was first followed and marked by Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 1700s. It was one of several named El Camino Real, or "Royal Road", that connected the Spanish possessions in North America with Mexico City.
Interest in the road revived in the early 20th century. In 1915, the Texas Legislature appropriated $5,000 to survey and mark the route, and professional surveyor V. N. Zivley was commissioned to make the study. A few years later, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed granite milestones every 5 miles along the route to mark it.
In October 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. The National Park Service started planning for El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail in 2006 with a comprehensive management plan.
The Sabine River is a 360-mile (580 km) long river in the Southern U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana, From the 32nd parallel north and downstream, it serves as part of the boundary between the two states and empties into Sabine Lake, an estuary of the Gulf of Mexico.
Maverick County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 57,887. Its county seat is Eagle Pass. The county was created in 1856 and organized in 1871. It is named for Samuel Maverick, cattleman and state legislator.
El Camino Real may refer to:
The Old San Antonio Road was a historic roadway located in the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana. Parts of it were based on traditional Native American trails. Its Texas terminus was about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Eagle Pass at the Rio Grande in Maverick County, and its northern terminus was at Natchitoches, Louisiana. The road continued from Texas through Monclova to Mexico City.
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the trail served as a vital commercial highway until 1880, when the railroad arrived in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was near the end of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which carried trade from Mexico City. The trail was later incorporated into parts of the National Old Trails Road and U.S. Route 66.
There are many historic trails and roads in the United States which were important to the settlement and development of the United States including those used by American Indians.
Los Adaes was the capital of Tejas (Texas) on the northeastern frontier of New Spain from 1721 to 1773. It included a Franciscan mission, San Miguel de Cuéllar de los Adaes, and a presidio, Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes. The name Adaes derives from the indigenous Adai people, members of the Caddoan confederacy of Indians who were the people the missionaries aimed to convert to Christianity. The presidio and mission were established to counter French influence in Louisiana territory and defend New Spain from possible invasion or encroachment by the French. In 1763 Louisiana came under the control of Spain and the Los Adaes outpost was no longer necessary for defense. In 1773 the Spanish closed the mission and presidio and forced the population to move to San Antonio.
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, also known as the Silver Route, was a Spanish 2,560-kilometre-long (1,590 mi) road between Mexico City and San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico, that was used from 1598 to 1882. It was the northernmost of the four major "royal roads" that linked Mexico City to its major tributaries during and after the Spanish colonial era.
The Old Spanish Trail was an auto trail that once spanned the United States with almost 2,750 miles (4,430 km) of roadway from ocean to ocean. It crossed eight states and 67 counties along the southern border of the United States. Work on the auto highway began in 1915 at a meeting held at the Battle House Hotel in Mobile, Alabama; and, by the 1920s, the trail linked St. Augustine, Florida, to San Diego, California, with its center and headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. The work at San Antonio, and indeed nationally, was overseen by an executive committee consisting of prominent San Antonio businessmen which met at the Gunter Hotel weekly.
The New Philippines was the abbreviated name of a territory in New Spain. Its full and official name was Nuevo Reino de Filipinas.
In the history of the American frontier, pioneers built overland trails throughout the 19th century, especially between 1840 and 1847 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States did so with various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move from their homes to destinations further west via routes such as the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again encouraged mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further encouraged settlers to travel overland to the west.
Gaines Ferry was a ferry on the Sabine River, between what is now Sabine Parish, Louisiana and Sabine County, Texas, at the eastern terminus of Texas State Highway 21, and the western terminus of LA 6. Much of the early history of New Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, including the American Civil War, and the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana, involve some aspect of Gaines Ferry. It was a major highway to the west and cattle trail east, a port of entry for the Republic of Texas, and a transportation road for military supplies and soldiers during the American Civil War that included transporting cotton to Mexico. Gaines Ferry was the northern entry for many colonists heading to Texas, and it was named after James Gaines who purchased it in 1819. The ferry saw continuous service until 1937.
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows; however, it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857–1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles, also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present day California. It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s in the period.
Dón Antonio Gil Ybarbo (1729–1809), also known as Gil Ybarbo or Gil Ibarbo was a spanish military personell and trader of the Spanish Texas times, who played a crucial role in the development of Nacogdoches, Texas in 1779.
Mission Tejas State Park is a 660-acre (270 ha) state park located along Texas State Highway 21 in Houston County, Texas, originally constructed in 1935 and transferred to Texas Parks and Wildlife in 1957. The closest major town is Crockett, Texas. The park is open year-round.
Mission Dolores State Historic Site (41SA25) is a 36-acre historic site including a 9-acre (3.6 ha) archaeological site listed on the National Register of Historic Places in San Augustine County, Texas that preserves the location of a Franciscan mission originally established in 1721. The site is located on the original El Camino Real de los Tejas trail. The site has no above ground remains of the mission but the mission's location is confirmed through archeological excavations. It is located half a mile south of San Augustine in the Piney Woods region of east Texas. Operated by the Texas Historical Commission, the site includes a campground, museum, gift shop and hiking trails.
The Camino Real in New Mexico was the northern part of a historic roadway known as the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro that from 1598 ran from Mexico City northward through central and northern Mexico and the Trans-Pecos part of what is now Texas to San Juan Pueblo in Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, now the state of New Mexico.
José Domingo Ramón was a Spanish military man and explorer who founded several missions and a presidio in East Texas to prevent French expansion in the area.
The Adai Caddo Indians of Louisiana is a state-recognized tribe in Louisiana and 501(c)(3) organization in Robeline, Louisiana. Its members are descendants of the Adai people. The chief is John Mark Davis, as of 2023.