Near Site of Lodi Ferry

🏛️The era

The land along the San Antonio River south of San Antonio has a long history of European settlement. In the early eighteenth century, Spanish missions were founded in San Antonio, and herdsmen from those missions grazed livestock across this countryside. Ranching in South Texas grew out of those mission herds.

For well over a century after that, crossing the river was a basic problem. There were no bridges or ferries in this county. Travelers, wagons and herds crossed at natural fords, which could be easy in dry weather and dangerous or impossible after heavy rain.

The area also lay along the Old San Antonio-La Bahia Road, a historic route connecting San Antonio with the coast country around Goliad. The road carried traders, freight wagons and travelers, and the community of Lodi grew up along it.

By 1871, Texas was in the Reconstruction years after the Civil War, and counties were working to improve roads, crossings and commerce. Wilson County decided that a reliable river crossing was overdue.

👥People & events

In 1871 the Wilson County Commissioners Court declared that a ferry was needed. To attract someone to run one, it offered generous terms: no licensing fees for the first five years, and the right to charge the highest fare state law allowed.

Nemencio de la Zerda II took the offer. He owned land along the river near the mouth of Chiver Creek and started a ferry on the east bank at Lodi, about a mile north of the center of Floresville. He was a native of the area and a Confederate veteran, and he was a busy public figure. He served as Lodi's justice of the peace and as county sheriff and tax collector.

Family tradition adds a detail that makes the scene easy to picture. De la Zerda is said to have hung a bell near his boat, and travelers rang it when they wanted to cross. Since this comes from family memory rather than a written record, it is best enjoyed as a cherished family story.

The ferry was valuable to traders hauling goods along the La Bahia road. In 1877 the de la Zerda family sold the business to W.W. Payne, and it later went to Vicente J. Carvajal. Then, in 1886, the county built a free bridge across the river nearby. Travelers gradually stopped using the ferry, and a service that had once been essential faded away.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Rivers shaped how Americans traveled for most of the nation's history. Before bridges were common, ferries were a key link in the country's transportation network. They were often privately run and licensed by local government, which set the fares. Lodi's story, from fords to a ferry and then to a free public bridge, matches a pattern found in communities across the country.

The county's offer to waive fees and allow the top legal fare shows how local governments used private businesses to provide public services before they could afford to build infrastructure. Once a county could pay for a bridge that cost nothing to cross, the private ferry couldn't compete, and the job of moving people across the river passed to the public.

The marker also places this crossing within the long history of the Spanish missions and the old roads of colonial and Mexican Texas. That history shaped the land and the communities along the San Antonio River.

🧭If you visit

The ferry is long gone, and the marker stands near its site, so this is a place to picture the past. Imagine a ferryboat waiting on the east bank, a wagon loaded with goods pulling up from the La Bahia road, and a traveler ringing a bell to call the ferryman across.

Floresville is an easy drive southeast of San Antonio. This stop pairs naturally with a visit to the San Antonio missions, whose herdsmen once grazed livestock on this land, so the two make a good combined trip along the river.

Take a moment to look at the river and think about what crossing it meant before the 1886 bridge. Whether the water ran low or high often decided when you could travel and whether you got there at all.