American Trails Revisited-Texas' Old San Antonio Road

By Lyn Wilkerson

The Old San Antonio Road was, for two centuries, the main artery of travel between San Antonio and Nacogdoches. Religion was the strongest influence during the era of the rule of Spain (1519-1821). Missions and presidios were built at strategic locations, and the homes of the settlers, usually of palings or stone, clustered near their walls. Beside the El Camino Real (The King's Highway), the Nacogdoches Road and other dim highways of the wilderness, isolated settlements sprang up. However, the failure of the east Texas missions caused Spanish colonization to center in the area between San Antonio and the Rio Grande, and the eastern towns of San Augustine and Nacogdoches soon became Anglicized.

This historical travel guide explores approximately 250 historic sites and landmarks along the route of the Old San Antonio Road, from the Louisiana State Line at the Toledo Bend Reservoir to the city of San Antonio, including the cities of Nacogdoches, Crockett, San Marcos, and New Braunfels. Reference maps and GPS Coordinates for listed sites are included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lyn Wilkerson
• Release date: Jul 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466170261

Lyn Wilkerson

Caddo Publications USA was created in 2000 to encourage the exploration of America’s history by the typical automotive traveler. The intent of Caddo Publications USA is to provide support to both national and local historical organizations as historical guides are developed in various digital and traditional print formats. Using the American Guide series of the 1930’s and 40’s as our inspiration, we began to develop historical travel guides for the U.S. in the 1990’s.

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While every effort has been made to insure accuracy, neither the author nor the publisher assume legal responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of this book or the information it contains.

All maps are by the author.

American Trails Revisited

Old San Antonio Road

Smashwords Edition

Lyn Wilkerson

All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2010 Lyn Wilkerson

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The Old San Antonio Road was, for two centuries, the main artery of travel between San Antonio and Nacogdoches. Religion was the strongest influence during the era of the rule of Spain (1519-1821). Missions and presidios were built at strategic locations, and the homes of the settlers, usually of palings or stone, clustered near their walls. Beside the El Camino Real (The King's Highway), the Nacogdoches Road and other dim highways of the wilderness, isolated settlements sprang up. However, the failure of the east Texas missions caused Spanish colonization to center in the area between San Antonio and the Rio Grande, and the eastern towns of San Augustine and Nacogdoches soon became Anglicized.

Table of Contents:

Toledo Bend Reservoir to Alto

Alto to Caldwell

Caldwell to San Antonio

San Antonio

Downtown

Environs

Texas-Louisiana State Line (Toledo Bend Reservoir, Sabine River)

Site of Gaines Ferry (TX 21 at Toledo Bend Reservoir)

The travel route begins at this point where James Gaines owned and operated a ferry line 1819 to 1844. Gaines was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. This site of a crossing on the Sabine River has been used for more than 400 years. It was used first by the Indians, later by the Spaniards, the French, and other Europeans, and more than 50,000 Anglo Americans who came to settle in Texas prior to Statehood.

Construction at the Toledo Bend site on the Sabine River, here the border between Texas and Louisiana, began on May 11th, 1964, and the deliberate impoundment of water began on October 3rd, 1966. By 1967, more than 100 archeological sites had been found at the Toledo Bend project. The dam was completed in 1969.i

From 1806 until 1820, the region along the Sabine River was referred to as neutral ground. The Neutral Ground Agreement was an accord between Spanish General Simon Herrera and American General James Wilkinson regarding the undefined and highly disputed border between their nations and more importantly their overlapping fields of operation. When Napoleon Bonaparte sold the Louisiana Purchase to the United States in 1803, it came without a definite western border. First claimed by France, surrendered to Spain in 1763, reclaimed by France in 1797, then transferred to the United States in 1803, none of the nations involved ever had agreed that the Sabine River was the boundary. America coveted land at least as far west as the Brazos and the Spanish thought their eastern neighbors should not encroach west of the Arroyo Hondo. Because neither Herrera, the military commander of Spain's northern provinces, or Wilkinson, the United States military commander of the American Southwest, wanted to start a war, they negotiated a neutral zone between Texas and Louisiana. Herrara came to Nacogdoches and Wilkinson to Natchitoches, frontier towns about ninety miles apart. Their emissaries met in the middle, and, after lengthy negotiations, proposed the Neutral Ground Agreement. The land between the Sabine River and the Arroyo Hondo, on a line between Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, and north and south of that line, was declared off limits to soldiers of either command. The assumption was that if Spanish and United States soldiers were not in one another's presence there would be no fighting. Unfortunately, the Neutral Ground attracted a population that relished not having soldiers, or law enforcement, from either nation to interfere.ii

Junction with Cedar Grove Road (0.6 mile west of Toledo Bend Reservoir on TX 21)

Point of Interest:

Gaines-Oliphint House (Cedar Grove Road North to Harbor Drive, Right on Harbor Drive to Ensign Drive, Left on Ensign Drive)

The structure, built by James Gaines on property that he acquired in 1830, is one of the oldest extant log residential buildings in Texas. The house, which measures fifty-two by twenty feet and has 2,000 square feet of living space, is a 1½-story double-pen log structure featuring dogtrots upstairs and down. In 1843, Gaines sold the house to Martha Oliphint and moved to Nacogdoches County. About 1845, Oliphint's daughter, Fanny, made the still-legible chalk notations in the upstairs dogtrot concerning the schedule of the riverboat Buffalo, the names of the Oliphint family members, and the initials of her future husband. Two additions were made to the house about 1860. The house was bought by the Waller family in 1910. The Gaines-Oliphint House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.iii

Milam (6.4 miles west of Cedar Grove Road on TX 21 at TX 87)

Milam was founded in 1828 as Red Mound. It was named in 1835 for Benjamin Rush Milam. The town served as the seat of justice for the Sabine municipality in 1835 and for Sabine County from 1837 until 1958. It was also an Internal Revenue post during the period of the Texas Republic and the headquarters of the Quartermaster’s Department for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Milam was incorporated on December 29th, 1837.

Many pioneers belonged to the Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, an order active in education. Among Masons settling in this area by 1845 were Republic of Texas leaders William Clark, James Gaines, D. S. Kaufman, Willis H. Landrum, and F. M. Weatherred. The Reverend Littleton Fowler (1803-1846), a Mason, opened in 1845 in this county the Midway Institute, which was soon absorbed by Red Mount Seminary. Set to work at Red Mount (Milam) in 1847 was Jackson Lodge No. 35, A.F. & A.M., with John Boyd, G.A. Norford, A.D. Oliphint, O.J. Polley, and J.T. Scruggs as officers. The lodge soon operated the Milam Masonic Institute, successor to the earlier schools. On the charter application in 1853, M.M.I. was listed as already a flourishing school. Later, Sexton Lodge No. 251, A.F. & A.M., operated M.M.I., a great contributor to East Texas culture until tax-funded education became universal in the 1870’s.

John C. Hale, one of nine patriots killed at the Battle of San Jacinto, was born in Scott County, Virginia on April 3rd, 1806. He married Barshaba Miller in his home state in 1830, and by 1835 moved with his wife and children to Sabine County. They were living in Milam when John joined the war effort against Mexico as a first lieutenant. At the age of 30, he died in combat in the final military conflict of the revolution in April 21st, 1836, and was buried with seven other battle casualties at the site of the Texan campground. For Hale's service, his heirs received 960 acres of land. In addition, the Legislature named Hale County in west Texas in honor of his patriotism and service during the Texas Revolution.

Points of Interest:

C. A. Nethery & Sons General Merchandise (TX 21, between Vernon Street and Vernon State Road South)

Charles Alexander Nethery, Sr. established a general merchandise near this site in 1880. Nethery married Amanda Francis Speights in 1884 and the couple had twelve children. When fire destroyed the first general merchandise store in 1915, the current structure was built a few yards from the original site. After Charles Sr.'s death in 1942, the store continued under management of their son, Charles Jr., until his death in 1996. The store is still owned and operated by members of the Nethery family and is the oldest continually operated business in Sabine County. The rectangular plan frame building with second-story loft has exterior walls and roof clad in heavy duty corrugated metal.

Causey House (TX 21, between TX 87 and Vernon Street)

This residence, located in El Camino Park, was built in 1830.

Junction with Kings Road (4.3 miles west of Milam on TX 21)

The earlier route of the Kings Highway and Old San Antonio Road continues straight on Kings Road. Texas Highway 21 turns north to pass through Geneva before reconnecting with the western end of Kings Road.

Side Trip to Geneva (Texas Highway 21 West)

Geneva (2 miles west on TX 21)

On July 23rd, 1884, a U.S. post office was established here with the name Geneva and William W. Johnson as the first postmaster. In the latter part of the 1800’s, Geneva began to grow and soon had a population of 150. It acquired several cotton gins, a gristmill, a hotel, two churches, a livery stable and at least five stores. Sabine County’s first independent school district was organized at Geneva in 1904. During the 1934-1935 school year, the community had 351 students. The town lost its post office and the last cotton gin in Sabine County was operated by Joe Harris at Geneva until it went out of business in 1959.iv

Point of Interest:

County Line Baptist Church (Farm Market Road 330 and Carters Ferry Road)

This congregation began soon after the end of the Civil War in the Freedmen's community known as Weeks Quarters, about two miles to the south. Early prayer meetings and worship services were conducted in homes. Led by the Reverend M. McBerry, the congregation built its first sanctuary in 1868. Worshipers came from a large surrounding area to attend services in the small frame building, which also served as a community schoolhouse. The church's name originated from its location near the Sabine-San Augustine County line.

In 1885, the members voted to relocate the church to the nearby Hankla community, next to the County Line Cemetery. The oldest documented grave in the cemetery dates to 1902, although local oral tradition suggests burials occurred much earlier. Many early graves are unmarked. In 1944, the congregation voted to move once again to this location. Since that time additional facilities have been built to serve the growing congregation. County Line Baptist Church continues to serve members from a large area in both San Augustine and Sabine counties.

Junction with Texas Highway 21 (2.9 miles west of TX 21 on Kings Road)

The travel route returns to Texas Highway 21 at this junction.

Lobanillo Creek (0.8 mile west of Kings Road on TX 21)

Lobanillo, or Lobanella Creek, was the site of El Lobanillo, the home of Antonio Gil y’Barbo (1729-1809) built about 1790. It consisted of two rooms, adzed cypress logs being notched into each other at the corners. Probably the chimney and fireplace were originally stone, since stone was found on the site, but the chimney later consisted of mud and bricks, the crevices being chinked with red mud and moss, which was also used to close the cracks between the logs. Packed earth served for a floor. There were no windows. Batten doors, two for each room, front and back, swung inward and could be made fast with wooden beams that fell into slotted keepers. The loopholes were later cut into windows.

El Lobanillo was where y-Barbo’s ill mother and other refugees remained when Spain evacuated colonists from western