Gonzales-San Antonio Road
Gonzales County, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Shortly after he established his colony along the Guadalupe River in 1825, Green Dewitt ordered that a road be built between his capital city, Gonzales, and San Antonio. Byrd Lockhart surveyed the road and opened it in 1827. Eighty miles long and running past three watering holes, settlers and Mexicans used it for travel and trade, though the presence of native groups in the area made traveling dangerous. Mile markers were carved into oak trunks along the route. During the Texas War for Independence, Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, and Jim Bowie used the road, as did the Immortal 32, who marched from Gonzales to the Alamo. Santa Anna also marched his army along it after the battle of the Alamo.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Green DeWitt planted his colony on the Guadalupe River in 1825, he ordered a road cut to link his capital at Gonzales with San Antonio, and surveyor Byrd Lockhart opened the eighty-mile route in 1827—its mileage notched into roadside oak trunks. Settlers, traders, and Mexican travelers braved the road despite the danger of raids. A decade later it became a thoroughfare of the Texas Revolution: the 'Immortal 32' marched down it from Gonzales to reinforce the Alamo, and Santa Anna's army followed after the fort fell.
Why it matters
This frontier road tied together the scattered settlements of Anglo-Mexican Texas and became a corridor of the revolution that turned a Mexican province into the Republic of Texas.
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Related people
- · Green DeWitt
- · Byrd Lockhart
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · William B. Travis
- · Jim Bowie
- · Santa Anna
Related events
- · Texas War for Independence
- · Battle of the Alamo
- · March of the Immortal 32
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cibolo Crossing on the Gonzales Road
La Vernia, TX
Under Mexican rule, the Gonzales Road linked the DeWitt Colony settlement of Gonzales to San Antonio de Béxar, fording the Cibolo Creek at a natural crossing about twenty-two miles east of the town. That ford ran through land granted to spy Erastus "Deaf" Smith, who is said to have watched Mexican troops from a nearby tree in 1835. The crossing became a rendezvous during the Texas Revolution, where relief forces under captains like Juan Seguín and Albert Martin gathered in early 1836 hoping to reinforce the Alamo, before annexation and new roads left the old ford abandoned.
Rancho
Nixon, TX
Rancho grew up around Paul Murray's country store, opened in 1849 at the crossing of roads to San Antonio, Gonzales, Seguin, Cuero, Goliad, and Indianola. Murray's fellow Mississippians followed him west for farmland but soon traded the plow for the saddle amid the free-ranging cattle of the open country, and the settlement took its Spanish name as a ranching culture took hold—some of Texas's earliest range branding codes were devised here in 1866. The town thrived with stores, a school, and two churches until 1906, when the railroad bypassed it for nearby Nixon and Rancho's buildings and people drifted away.
King Cemetery
Gonzales, TX
Perched on a hill above King Flats on the Guadalupe River, this burial ground has served the area since the 1830s, when John Gladden King—a member of the DeWitt Colony's governing council—and his wife Parmelia settled the land in 1830. The oldest marked grave belongs to two-day-old William G. Hall, who died in 1838, and seven generations of the King family rest here. Among the graves lie Texas Rangers and veterans of conflicts spanning the War of 1812 through the Korean War.
Claiborne West
Seguin, TX
Born in Tennessee in 1803, Claiborne West threw himself into the founding of a new republic: he served as a delegate to the conventions of 1832 and 1835, sat on the provisional government's council, and on March 2, 1836, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. He fought as a soldier and served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas before his death in 1866. Texas erected this Star-and-Wreath grave marker in his honor in 1962.