Douglass Pavilion -- Douglass TX - Eagle Scout Project Sites on Waymarking.com

The Douglas Pavilion holds five state historical markers and two intrepretive map signs about El Camino Real and the local history of this area.

The Douglas Pavilion is located at the FM 255 and the SH 21/El Camino Real in Douglass, west of Nacogdoches.

The Douglass Crossriads interpretive sign reads as follows:

""DOUGLASS CROSSROADS

Frenchman St. Denis

In 1714, a French trader named Louis Juchereau de St Denis entered into East Texas with 25 men and engaged in lucrative trade with the Cenis (Tejas) Indians. Cultural materials bound at his campsite (Mayhew site) by archaeologists include guns, knives, beads, scissors, copper pots, and led musket balls which St. Denis traded for pelts, horses and other goods.

Mision Concepcion

Captain Domingo Ramon established four missions in July, 1716. Father Isidro Felix de Espinoza was placed in charge of Mision Purisma Concepcion on the Angelina River. Espinoza assigned other priest to the Mision San Francisco on the Neches River and Mision San Jose north of Cushing, Texas. Father Antonio Marguil de Jesus was placed in charge of the Mision Guadalupe in Nacogdoches. Ramon later establish missions under Margate and 1717 at present day San Augustine, Texas and Robeline, Louisiana. Cultural materials found at the Mision Purisma Concepcion revealed a mixture of French, Spanish, and Native American items, including architectural males and hinges, Spanish and French gun parts, horse gear, copper pot fragments, door lock parts, small buckles and a handle for a chocolate pot.

Presidio Dolores

Ramon established his fort (Presidio Dolores) near the Mision Concepcion to protect the fryers. 25 soldiers were garrisoned at the Presidio. 8 women, 2 children and baby, and 22 assistance and herders lived at the fort complex. The Presidio was rebuilt by Governor Aguyao in 1721.

Rancho San Patricio

In 1797, the land in which the Mision Concepción and the Presidio Dolores were once located was obtained by merchant traders William Barr and Samuel Davenport of Nacogdoches. The large tract of 9 leagues (about 40,000 acres) was called Rancho San Patricio. Here cattle, horses and other livestock were gathered, branded, fed and driven to the United States at a considerable profit. Bar and Davenport also had other linked holding areas on the Trinity and Sabine Rivers.

Town of Douglass

The "Land of the Presidio" was inherited by John Durst in 1827 and the rancho was gradually divided into smaller parcels beginning in 1836. Michael Costley purchased 800 acres (circled above) from Durst and the town of Douglass was located on El Camino Real de los Tejas, now called Highway 21. The route of Highway 225 approximates an old north-south Indian trail and this ancient crossroads thus remains as an ongoing legacy.

[photos of artifacts recovered at archaeological sites near Douglass]

Contributors to the Douglass Pavilion

Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation * Emergency Services department Precinct 1 * Texas Historical Commission * Nacogdoches County Historical Commission * Doctor Tom Middlebrook * Doctor Morris K Jackson * El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail * Nine Flags Museum * Boy Scouts of America Troop 100, Trey Jackson Eagle Project * Cox contractors, Inc. * 2B Imaging and Design of Longview TX for kiosk design and Kaser Design of Coppell TX for initial concepts."

The state historical markers read as follows, from left to right:

"Louis Juchereau de St. Denis

Canadian Frenchman Louis Juchereau de St. Denis played an important role in the beginnings of Texas. In 1711, Spanish Father Francisco Hidalgo in East Texas wrote a letter to the French Governor Cadillac in Louisiana seeking assistance from the French in the religious conversion of the Caddo Confederacy. In response, Governor Cadillac sent trader St. Denis who found that Father Hidalgo had returned to Mexico. Following him, St. Denis arrived at the Presidio San Juan Bautista del Río Grande in July 1714 and was arrested and sent to Mexico City. There he gained the trust of the authorities with his vast knowledge of the rivers and terrain of Spanish Texas and he helped to produce the noted Olivan map of 1717.

St. Denis returned to East Texas in 1716 as a guide and ambassador for the Ramón-Espinoza-Margil expedition that founded a total of six missions and a presidio. St. Denis became the commandant at Natchitoches and provided goods and supplies to the Spanish missionaries and soldiers during dire times and actively traded with the Caddo tribes. Spanish authorities continued to forbid his trading activities of contraband goods but they had little control. Archeologists have located a St. Denis trading campsite in this vicinity. Through his travels, St. Denis contributed to the expanded geographical knowledge of New Spain, and he was the first European to travel the entire length of El Camino Real from Louisiana to Mexico City. Because of his expertise with the native Indians, the Spanish grew to loathe St. Denis and upon his death, the Governor in Mexico City is said to have declared, “St. Denis is dead, thank God!” (2013)

Marker is property of the State of Texas"

"Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisma Concepcion de los Hainais

Originally built in 1716, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais was established during Domingo Ramón’s expedition to forge Spanish settlements in Texas. Father Félix Isidro Espinosa, the President of Querétaran missions in Texas, founded Concepción on July 7, 1716 in the village of the Hainais, the lead tribe of the Hasinai or Tejas Caddo. Accounts indicate that Mission Concepción was located east of the Angelina River, and that the church and missionary residence were placed on a north-south oriented mesa (or terrace) near two springs. It served as the original headquarters of the missions in East Texas and Ramón placed Presidio Dolores nearby. The important French trader and diplomat St. Denis visited Concepción many times.

Following a period of hardship and drought, Mission Concepción was re-supplied in 1718 during a visit by Governor Martin de Alarcón. A house was built near the mission for the governor. Alarcón moved the “sagacious” Caddo translator, Angelina, to the mission as well. All the East Texas missions were abandoned in 1719 due to a French attack on Mission San Miguel but were soon reestablished and reinforced by the 1721 Aguayo expedition. Due to the closure of the nearby presidio in 1729, Concepción was relocated to the San Antonio River in 1731 and renamed Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de la Acuña. During the first fourteen years of permanent Spanish occupation of Texas, Mission Concepción was a key hub along El Camino Real de los Tejas, fostering interaction among Catholic priests, Spanish governors, French traders and East Texas Indian groups. (2012)

Marker is property of the state of Texas"

"San Patricio Rancho

William Barr and Samuel Davenport arrived in Nacogdoches by 1797 and settled on nine leagues of land called Presidio Viejo where the old Presidio Dolores was located. The traders renamed the grant San Patricio after the Irish patron Saint Patrick. Before the turn of the 19th century, the Spanish government had granted them a commission to supply the Native Americans with trade items in exchange for peltries, furs and livestock. By 1803, Barr and Davenport had a monopoly to trade with the Indians and provide food and clothing to the soldiers stationed in Nacogdoches. With the monopoly intact, they developed a series of land grants along El Camino Real on major East Texas rivers. Each location had a crossing with sufficient pasture land to provide forage for cattle and horses or land to raise corn and other crops. Each site also served as a way station for rest, protection and food for travelers. Each location was part of the overall trade network which was linked to their headquarters at Nacogdoches and extended to Natchitoches, Louisiana and the eastern markets. At times, Barr and Davenport also supplied goods as far westward as San Antonio.

Various groups of Caddo Indians lived freely within the boundaries of each land grant. While the employees of Barr and Davenport often lived and conducted their trade within the distant scattered Indian villages, they used this series of land grants as centers to restock supplies. Travelers that followed El Camino Real from Nacogdoches to San Antonio or vice versa had to pass through San Patricio to cross the Angelina River. San Patricio Rancho is a true example of the rich Spanish and French history of the area. (2013)

Marker is property of the State of Texas"

"Presidio Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Tejas

On April 25, 1716, Captain Domingo Ramón embarked on an expedition to establish a permanent settlement in the Spanish province of Texas, which resulted in the establishment of Presidio Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Tejas (also called Presidio Dolores or Presidio de los Tejas). Capt. Ramón left the Presidio San Juan Bautista and crossed the Rio Grande with a group of more than seventy people to build and occupy a fort and a chain of missions among the Tejas Indians of the Caddo Confederacy in East Texas. French trading with the Caddo Indians was heavily present by 1716, and a French attack on Mission San Miguel in 1719 prompted the Spanish to abandon Presidio Dolores and the missions.

Spanish and French tensions eased in 1721. The Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo, the new Spanish Governor, reestablished Presidio Dolores and the six missions. Sketches of Presidio Dolores exhibited a square-shaped fort with two bastions on opposite corners, an interior plaza with small houses along its perimeter, and a chapel near the south bulwark. After a 1727 Spanish military review, Presidio Dolores was closed in 1729 and the three nearby western missions were abandoned in 1730. Presidio Dolores was not only significant because it was the first presidio in the province of Texas, it was also the first Spanish settlement to have women and children. Its status as an established presidio helped to displace French ownership claims over Texas. The Commission of Control of the Texas Centennial placed a Centennial marker in 1936 to honor the Presidio’s legacy. (2014)

Marker is property of the state of Texas"

and

"Town of Douglas

Located on the Old San Antonio Road four miles east of the Angelina River and fourteen miles west of Nacogdoches, the town of Douglass sits on the extreme northeast corner of the old Barr and Davenport grant called the San Patricio Ranch. Michael Costley, known as "The Father of Douglass," arrived in Texas in spring of 1832. In 1836, at the age of 27, Costley enlisted as a volunteer the Texas Army and patrolled the San Antonio Road between the Angelina and Neches rivers. In September 1836, General Houston ordered Costley and soldiers to go into nearby Cherokee territory to monitor their activities, and soon a formal assignment was made.

Anticipating his new proposed town in the area to flourish, Costley had surveyor William Roark lay out the town in a square and began to sell lots. He and his partner Joseph S. Able owned the first general store named Costley & Able. A nearby river port on the Angelina shipped cotton to the Gulf and a stagecoach line was established. However, before the town took off, Costley was killed in a gunfight on November 16, 1837, by W. R. D. Speight, the first District Clerk of Nacogdoches.

The town was named in honor of General Kelsey Harris Douglass, a prominent early settler and Republic of Texas Congressman. In 1840, the town consisted of a two-story stagecoach inn, two hotels, jail, drugstore, post office, saloons, and a variety of shops. The first church was established in 1837 with nine people present at the first service. Devastating fires in 1943 and 1954 impeded town growth. Although never as large as its founders intended, the town of Douglass has been a significant gateway for travel, trade and communications from west to east. (2017)

Marker is property of the state of Texas"

Name of Eagle Scout: Trey Jackson Project Completion Date: 01/01/2017 Troop Number: 100 Troop Location: unknown

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