Caddo Trace
Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Hunting and trade route for area between Arkansas and Red Rivers; used by Caddo Indians, who occupied the northeast corner of Texas and adjacent states. Like many Indian trails, it was later usurped by whites; after 1840, it became part of stage and mail routes. Teamsters used it transporting goods to market; soldiers marched along it to and from several wars. The trace follows or crosses in places 3 other early trails: Cherokee, Choctaw, and Trammel's. Today state highways 11 and 49 (Hughes Springs to Daingerfield) follow the same general route.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Caddo Trace was an ancient hunting and trade path worn by the Caddo people who lived in the northeast corner of what became Texas. Like many Indigenous routes, it was later taken over by newcomers, becoming part of stage and mail lines after 1840 and a road for teamsters and marching soldiers. It touched or crossed the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Trammel's traces, and modern state highways still trace its course.
Why it matters
The trace is a reminder that America's roads often began as Native American paths, and that Indigenous knowledge of the land quite literally laid the groundwork for later settlement.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tarver's Ferry
Gilmer, TX
At a strategic crossing of Big Cypress Creek, this pioneer ferry carried settlers pressing west into the Texas interior, many arriving through the busy river port of Jefferson and stopping for provisions at nearby Coffeeville. James L. Tarver, who lived on the Coffeeville Road, likely worked the ferry in the 1860s. Long before wagons and oxen came this way, the Caddo people forded the stream at the very same spot, until a bridge built by 1867 finally rendered the ferry obsolete.
Jefferson-Quitman Road
Gilmer, TX
One of three pioneer roads crossing Upshur County, the Jefferson–Quitman Road carried freighters and westbound settlers, along with cotton, hides, and produce bound for the busy inland port at Jefferson. Here it crossed the Cherokee Trace, the older path the Cherokee used traveling between reservation lands in Arkansas and their grounds near Nacogdoches. Nearby, the Mt. Gilead Primitive Baptist Church was organized in 1848 on land given by merchant Leonidas Cartwright.
Cherokee Trace
Gilmer, TX
Around 1821, Cherokee people living near Nacogdoches blazed a trail north toward their kin in Arkansas, guided by a scout who set his course by dragging buffalo skins behind his horse while others marked the trees and planted Cherokee roses still seen along the route. Sam Houston, David Crockett, and thousands of settlers followed this road into Texas. The Cherokee were expelled from Texas in 1839 after Houston left the presidency, their chief killed in a two-day battle on the Neches River.
Rev. Nathan S. Johnson
Daingerfield, TX
Born in Virginia in 1802 and raised near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Nathan Johnson was licensed to preach in 1824 and served as a Methodist missionary to the Cherokee and others. He brought his family to Texas in 1851 and rode the East Texas circuit for seven years, ministering in towns like Marshall, Jefferson, and Clarksville before ending his life as pastor at Daingerfield, where he died of pneumonia in 1860.