Old Chihuahua Road
La Vernia, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mexican cart road from central Mexico to Texas Coast at Indianola. Route of marauding Indians as well as Alsatian, German, Polish, Irish immigrants seeking freedom in New World. After 1835 was important in gold and silver exporting; in 1850s for army travel. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Old Chihuahua Road ran from central Mexico to the Texas coast at Indianola, a cart route worn by traders, raiders, and newcomers alike. Alsatian, German, Polish, and Irish immigrants followed it inland seeking a fresh start, even as it doubled as a path for Indian raiding parties. After 1835 it carried gold and silver bound for export, and by the 1850s it served as a route for army travel.
Why it matters
The road is a reminder that South Texas was a crossroads of cultures and commerce, where immigrant hopes, trade, and frontier conflict all moved along the same rutted track.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Attractions
- Green Acres Golf and Games11.0 mi away
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cibolo
Cibolo, TX
Cibolo took root in 1875 when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad pushed a line across western Guadalupe County. A general store opened the next year to serve the largely German settlers, and a post office followed in 1876, giving the town a name drawn from an Indian word for buffalo. For a time it was also called Fromme's Store after Charles Fromme bought the business in 1882; the community finally incorporated in 1965.
Schertz
Schertz, TX
Schertz began in the 1840s when German immigrants from the New Braunfels area spread out in search of good farmland along Cibolo Creek. The community lived by agriculture until the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad arrived about 1877, linking it to San Antonio and wider markets. Once known as Cibolo Pit and Cutoff, the town took the name Schertz — for early settler Sebastian Schertz — when its post office opened in 1882.
La Vernia
La Vernia, TX
Founded about 1846–47 by Claiborne Rector, who built a stage stop and blacksmith shop to serve travelers on the Chihuahua Road, this Wilson County settlement grew up along one of early Texas's major trails—still traced by Main Street today. First called 'Post Oak,' it was renamed for the green oaks of the area when mail service began in 1856. Settled largely by Southerners seeking fertile land, it became a Civil War recruiting and officer-training center.
Applewhite Homestead
La Vernia, TX
The Applewhite line reached Texas through Thomas Applewhite, a North Carolina–born War of 1812 sergeant who, with his wife Elizabeth and eight enslaved people, moved to Wilson County in 1853 and bought 214 acres here the next year. Local tradition holds the homestead served briefly as a stage stop on an alternate branch of the Chihuahua Road running from the coast to San Antonio. After emancipation, African American families who had taken the Applewhite name established their own homes nearby and remained in the area for generations, their story bound up with the land's original stone house, largely destroyed by 1950s highway work.