The Battle of the Salado

San Antonio, TX

In September 1842, as Mexican forces under General Woll occupied San Antonio, Captain Nicholas Dawson led 53 volunteers from La Grange to reinforce Texan troops fighting at Salado Creek. Cut off and surrounded by cavalry and artillery, Dawson's company was overwhelmed: 36 men were killed, 15 captured, and only 3 escaped. The bloody episode became known as the Dawson Massacre.

San Antonio, TX

This Neo-Classical Revival residence was completed in 1909 for Gen. John Lapham Bullis, a New Yorker who spent much of his career on the Southwestern frontier. In 1873 Bullis took command of a company of Seminole Scouts whose skill at tracking raiders on the Texas border drew national attention. He lived in the house, designed by San Antonio architect Harvey Page, until his death in 1911; nearby Camp Bullis bears his name.

San Antonio, TX

This eighteenth-century rammed-earth home was built by early landowner Macario Zambrano in Spanish colonial San Antonio. His sons carried the family into the turbulent politics of a changing frontier: Juan Manuel helped put down the 1811 Casas revolt and fought at the 1813 Battle of Medina, while others served as alcalde and as a priest at San Fernando Cathedral during the Texas fight for independence. The house is a rare survivor of the region's Spanish-era building traditions.

San Antonio, TX

Boston-born Samuel S. Smith rode with the Woll and Somervell expeditions of 1842, the volatile border campaigns that followed Mexican incursions into the young Republic of Texas. He lived until 1882 and is remembered here alongside his wife Sarah.