The Old San Antonio Road (sometimes called El Camino Real, Camino Arriba , or Lower Presidio Road ) is a historic roadway located in Texas and Louisiana, United States. Its Texas terminus is at Paso de Francia at the Rio Grande in Maverick County; its northern terminus is at Natchitoches, Louisiana. The road continues from Texas, through Montclova to Mexico City.
Length
Major cities along the route
- Natchitoches, Louisiana
- Many, Louisiana
- Nacogdoches, Texas
- Crockett, Texas
- Caldwell, Texas
- Bastrop, Texas
- San Marcos, Texas
- New Braunfels, Texas
- San Antonio, Texas
- Cotulla, Texas
Route
The Old San Antonio Road mostly parallels Louisiana State Highway 6 for the entirety of its route through that state. At Texas, the road follows Texas State Highway 21 to Midway, Texas, follows Texas State Highway OSR around Bryan and College Station, and back to Highway 21 to San Marcos. South of San Marcos to San Antonio, the road follows various local, county and Farm to Market Roads .
South of San Antonio, to road is now mostly on private property, with only very few segments on isolated publicly accessible county roads.
Notes
In 1690, Alonso De León crossed the Rio Grande on his way to East Texas, effectively blazing the Old San Antonio Road. While many smaller Indian routes on the San Antonio Road had existed much earlier, this was the first time they were all connected into one route.
During the time that Texas was a Spanish, then Mexican, state, the road was used as a major thoroughfare between Mexico City and the entire state of Texas. With independence, however, trade between Mexico and Texas waned, while trade with the United States began to increase. By the 1870s, with the coming of the railroad, the roadway between San Antonio and Mexico had all but disappeared.
The Camino Arriba, however, was a vital link to the United States, and continues to be used to the present day as Texas Highway 21.
In 1915 the State of Texas and the Daughters of the American Revolution funded a project to mark the trail with granite boulders every five miles. V.N. Zively , a professional surveyor, mapped the routing, and placed posts for the markers. The State of Texas took this routing and marked the remaining county roads as Texas Highway OSR. Originally, the whole route from the Sabine River to San Marcos carried this designation, but it has since been pulled back to a short "bypass" around Bryan. Most of the granite markers still exist, but in South Texas have been moved by ranchers when needed.
External link
Last updated: 08-20-2005 13:26:26
