El Camino Real
Benchley, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Also known as Old San Antonio Road and Old Spanish Trail A trail of adventure, hardships, opportunity and freedom, over which history stalked into Texas. To the Spanish, El Camino Real was a road traveled for the king – to colonize, Christianize, seek adventure or look for riches. This road became the most famous. Its many parts were made, discovered or known hundreds of years before 1691, when Domingo Teran de los Rios, first Texas governor, joined and marked the different trails for the king. It was the route from Monclova (crossing the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass) to the missions of east Texas. Probably its trailblazers were buffalos and Indians, or Aztecs on trading expeditions. It was also probably traveled, described and changed in part by French explorer La Salle; by Alonso de Leon and Father Damian Massanet planting missions in east Texas; and by the French nobleman St. Denis seeking trade along the Rio Grande. As the years wore on, it was traveled in 1820 by Moses Austin, as well as by thousands of settlers who followed him. San Augustine, Nacogdoches and San Antonio were its principal cities; inns sprang up along the way. Soldiers and supply trains used it during the Texas Revolution, Mexican War and Civil War. It is still followed in part by this highway.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
El Camino Real — the King's Highway, also called the Old San Antonio Road — was the great overland route by which Spanish colonization reached into Texas, formally marked by the first Texas governor in 1691 but following far older paths worn by buffalo, Native peoples, and traders. Over the centuries it carried explorers like La Salle and St. Denis, mission-founders such as De León and Massanet, and finally Moses Austin and the thousands of American settlers who followed him in 1820. Soldiers and supply trains moved along it through the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War.
Why it matters
This ancient road is one of North America's great corridors of history, carrying Indigenous trade, Spanish empire, and American settlement across Texas along a single enduring path still traced by modern highways.
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Related people
- · Domingo Terán de los Ríos
- · Alonso de León
- · Father Damián Massanet
- · St. Denis
- · Moses Austin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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El Camino Real
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El Camino Real, the 'Royal Road,' ran roughly a thousand miles from Saltillo in Mexico into present-day Louisiana, following ancient Indian and buffalo trails. Its oldest marked segment was blazed in 1691 under Domingo Terán de los Ríos to link the provincial capital with the Spanish missions of East Texas, and in 1820 Moses Austin traveled it to San Antonio to request the land grant that opened Texas to Anglo-American settlement. In 1918 the state and the Daughters of the American Revolution set granite markers every five miles along the Texas route.
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