Camino Real de San Saba (Camino Viejo) in Kendall County
Boerne, Kendall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Beginning in the 1700s, the Camino Real de San Saba extended northwest from San Antonio through the Comanche and Apache-dominated Hill Country to the Spanish fort on the San Saba River named Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas. A portion of the trail was drawn on a Spanish-era map of the San Antonio Presidio in 1767 by Joseph de Urrutia. The path also became known as Camino Viejo (Spanish for “Old Trail”) in later documents. The San Saba Presidio officially closed in 1772. Camino Real de San Saba and the Pinta Trail were two useful pathways into the Hill Country for Spanish Entradas, early explorers and later settlers. Early surveyors, including John “Jack” Coffee Hays and John James contributed to the documentation and preservation of the historic road’s alignment through their field notes and maps in Kendall County. The Pinta Trail a few miles to the east initially overshadowed the Camino San Saba in popularity, but both were used by German settlers from the 1840s onward. Alwin Sorgel recorded in 1847 that “there were two roads from San Antonio into the grant, the Camino Viejo going in a westerly direction and the Pindas Trail going in a northerly direction. The Indians used these trails for centuries.” German cartographer Hermann Willke drew an 1850 map depicting both trails. Camino real San Saba came down this hill and passed a half-mile west of Boerne’s Main Plaza, platted in 1852 by partners Gustav Theisen and John James. From there the pathway threaded a pre-Boerne settlement and further north, after going through Spanish Pass, crossed the Guadalupe River where Brownsboro sprang up.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
From the 1700s, the Camino Real de San Saba ran northwest from San Antonio through Comanche- and Apache-dominated Hill Country to the Spanish Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas on the San Saba River, a route mapped by Joseph de Urrutia in 1767. Long used by Native peoples and later by Spanish entradas, the "old trail" became a path for German settlers arriving from the 1840s onward, its alignment recorded by surveyors like Jack Hays and John James. It passed just west of Boerne's Main Plaza before threading north through Spanish Pass toward the Guadalupe River.
Why it matters
Old roads are the arteries of settlement, and this one carries three centuries of Texas history — Indigenous trails, Spanish frontier ambition, and German immigrant hopes — through a single Hill Country corridor.
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Related people
- · Joseph de Urrutia
- · Jack Hays
- · John James
- · Alwin Sorgel
- · Hermann Willke
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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