This sign is located at the El Camino Real trail ruts at Caddo Mounds State Historic site, and reads as follows:
"EL CAMINO REAL DE LOS TEJAS
A Corridor for Commerce, Culture, and Change - Past and Present
You are standing at one small point on the legendary network of roads that arc across Texas – El Camino Real de los Tejas. The main overland route from Mexico, through Texas, and into Louisiana, this corridor shaped the history and culture of the region.
Hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, Native Americans established a network of trade routes through the region -- connecting people and traditions, carrying crops and goods. When the Spanish arrived in the late 1600s, they called the local Caddo Indians Tejas and renamed their trade routes El Camino Real de los Tejas, or The Royal Road of the Tejas. The Spanish extended and adapted the roads as they sent soldiers to solidify their claims of possession and missionaries to convert the Native Americans. 100 years later, immigrants from the United States traveled this route bringing their own language and culture.
From the West
Alonso de Leon lead for Spanish military explorations, known as Entrada, between 1686 and 1689 to search for LaSalle’s doomed French settlement, Fort St. Louis. His entradas likely used the existing Native American routes and open the way to establishing the first mission in East Texas, San Francisco de los Tejas, in 1690. The missions provided the foundation for the Spanish presence in Texas and developed into towns and cities that flourish today, like Nacogdoches, Crockett, and San Antonio.
Caught in the Middle
European settlers from both the east and the west converged in Texas and forced many of the local Native American groups, like the Caddo and Ais, away from their traditional homelands. Today the Caddo Nation Tribal Complex is located in Binger, Oklahoma.
El Camino Real de los Tejas
The route, made up of many routes, stretched across 2500 miles, and parts of it are still in use today is Texas State Highway 21 and other highways in South and East Texas.
From East to West
immigrants in United States began arriving Mexican held Texas around 1823, settling on the coastal plain between the San Antonio and Brazos rivers. Over the next few years, increasing southwest bound traffic along El Camino Real de los Tejas brought more Americans looking for opportunities and inexpensive farmland. When Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, more than 25,000 American immigrants call Texas their home.
Texas Mapped
French geographer Guillaume de l’Isle publish this map of “La Louisiane” in 1718. It is the first detailed map of the Gulf Coast region and the Mississippi River, as well as the first printed map to include Texas."
The El Camino Real de los Tejas has been designated a National Historic Trail through the states of Texas and New Mexico. (
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"From the Rio Grande to the Red River Valley
Come on a journey that will carry you through 300 years of Louisiana and Texas frontier settlement and development on a Spanish colonial "royal road" that originally extended to Mexico City, Mexico.
You are about to travel 2,500 miles, from Mission San Juan Bautista Guerrero, Mexico to Fort St. Jean Baptiste Nachitoches Parish, Louisiana."