Mendoza Trail
McCamey, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Route taken, 1683-1684, by the party of Lt. Gen. Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, whose purpose was to explore the Pecos Plains, obtain pearls from Texas rivers, and Christianize the Jumano Indians. Starting 12 miles below El Paso, the party of 35 traveled first southeast, then northeast into Texas, Crossing future Upton County. They found many pearls near present San Angelo; and at the confluence of the Concho and Colorado rivers, they founded San Clemente Mission. Two centuries later, part of Mendoza's route was taken by the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1683–1684, Lt. Gen. Juan Dominguez de Mendoza led a party of 35 across the future Upton County on a Spanish expedition to explore the Pecos Plains, gather river pearls, and bring Christianity to the Jumano Indians. Setting out from below El Paso, the group founded San Clemente Mission where the Concho met the Colorado. Two centuries later, cattlemen following the Goodnight-Loving trail retraced part of Mendoza's route.
Why it matters
The trail marks one of the earliest documented European ventures deep into West Texas, linking Spanish colonial ambition, Indigenous peoples, and the later cattle frontier along a single path.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1680s, Spain's hold on its far northern frontier was badly shaken. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 had driven Spanish colonists and missionaries out of New Mexico, and the survivors had fallen back to the El Paso area along the Rio Grande. From that stretch of river, Spanish officials looked east across an enormous, little-known country of dry plains, scattered rivers, and Native nations they knew mostly by report.
That country was not empty. The Jumano people were known as traders and go-betweens who moved across the southern plains and the river valleys of what is now West and Central Texas, linking different peoples through exchange. To the Spanish, contact with the Jumano promised allies, converts, and knowledge of the land. There was also the lure of goods worth carrying home, and river pearls from Texas streams were one of them.
The Mendoza party set out into this uncertain world in 1683. Nearly two centuries had passed since Europeans first crossed parts of Texas, but very little of the interior had been mapped or described. Any expedition that pushed across the Pecos country was entering land that Spain claimed on paper and barely knew in practice.
People & events
At the head of the expedition was Lt. Gen. Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, a seasoned soldier of the New Mexico frontier. He led a small company of about 35 people from a point roughly 12 miles below El Paso. They had three aims: to explore the Pecos Plains, to gather pearls from Texas rivers, and to bring Christianity to the Jumano.
The route was anything but a straight line. The party first headed southeast, then turned northeast, and in doing so crossed the land that would one day become Upton County. For a group that size, crossing this dry country meant finding water, grass for the animals, and a way through unfamiliar ground, often with Native guides and hosts who knew it far better than they did.
The travelers found what they were looking for. Near present-day San Angelo they collected many pearls from the rivers, which would have made a striking report back home. Where the Concho meets the Colorado they founded San Clemente Mission, a hopeful outpost of faith far out on the frontier. Historians have long debated just where the expedition's camps and mission stood, and the ground record is thin. Still, the journey itself is one of the better-documented Spanish ventures into this part of Texas.
Its place in the American story
The Mendoza Trail is a reminder that the American West was not only opened from the east. More than a century before Anglo-American settlers pushed toward Texas, Spanish soldiers and missionaries were crossing its interior from the Rio Grande, working alongside and depending on Native peoples who already had networks of travel and trade across the region.
The expedition also shows the Jumano as active players in that story, not bystanders. Relations between the Spanish and the plains peoples shaped where missions, trade and later settlement went. That tangle of cooperation, ambition and misunderstanding runs through the whole history of the borderlands.
The marker makes one more connection. About two centuries later, part of Mendoza's route was used by the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail, one of the famous drives that carried Texas cattle west and north after the Civil War. The same geography that guided a Spanish column in the 1680s guided cowboys and herds in the late 1800s. Water, terrain and passable ground decide where people travel, whatever the century.
If you visit
Standing near McCamey, you are in wide-open Permian Basin country: big sky, low mesas, mesquite and scrub, and long views broken now by the machinery of the oil fields. Try to picture the land without roads or fences, crossed by a small party on horseback reading the country for water and a safe way forward. It is a good place to feel how daring such a journey was.
The marker makes a good stop on a West Texas drive, especially if you want to follow the thread of the story. Heading toward San Angelo takes you toward the river country where the party found its pearls and where the Concho and Colorado story plays out. Other historic sites across the region pick up the Goodnight-Loving trail and the cattle era that followed.
Bring water, check the weather, and allow time. Distances out here are real, and that is part of the lesson. The same distances the Mendoza party faced still shape how you experience this landscape today.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Juan Dominguez de Mendoza
Themes & tags
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