This historic marker is co-located with an official state historic marker (about Spanish Explorartion in Medina County) in a roadside pullout along state Highway 173, west of Devine, Texas.
The sign reads as follows:
"CHARCO DE LA PITA
Within one mile of this site was the famed camping place, Charco de la Pita. It was located along the old Pita Road, the first road in Texas. The Pita Road extended from the San Juan Bautista Mission, some 25 miles down the Rio Grande from present-day Eagle Pass, to missions in San Antonio and Nacogdoches.
Domingo Ramon, who opened the Pita Road, camped here on May 12, 1716. Martin De Alarcon, on his way to establish the city of San Antonio, camped here on April 20, 1718.
The Pita Road remained active until approximately 1765, when the fierce Comanche Indians, newcomers to the area, caused a more safe route to be established. At that time the lower Presidio Road was created. It was located some 25 miles to the south east. A marker is in place at that site on this highway.
With the arrival of a small detachment of Spanish troops, the upper Presidio Road, a more direct route from San Antonio to San Juan Bautista, was Oakland circuit 1807. That old road would have intersected this highway approximately 2.7 miles northwest, at the top of a low ridge.
Compiled by J. A. Rios
Medina County Historical Commission
1989"
From the Texas Almanac (heavily edited for length - BMB): (
visit link)
"Origins of the Camino Real in Texas
By Al McGraw
The old Spanish road called the Camino Real has had many names since it first entered Texas in the late 17th century. But whatever it was called — Camino Real de los Tejas, Camino Pita, Camino Arriba, Camino de en Medio, King’s Highway, Old San Antonio Road — it was not an ordinary camino (road). Though often little more than a mule track, it was a camino real — a royal road with special status.
. . . .
Texas’ Camino Real, sometimes known in the 18th century as the Camino Real de Los Tejas, was not a single trail. It was a network of regional routes separately known as the Camino Pita, the Upper Presidio Road; the Lower Presidio Road, also called the Camino de en Medio; the Camino Arriba; and the San Antonio-Nacogdoches Road or Old San Antonio Road of the mid-19th century, portions of which are still marked with the designation “OSR” on Texas highway maps and road signs. Throughout its three-hundred-year history, the alignments of different regional segments shifted laterally within a narrow corridor of time and space to allow travelers to avoid obstacles such as flooded rivers or hostile Indians. Most of the landmarks and destinations of the segments, however, remained constant.
Parts of these roads were not only used for travel, they also formed some of the earliest political boundaries. Near San Antonio for example, the Lower Presidio Road once separated thousands of acres of ranch land claimed by the missions of Espada and San José. The ruts of the trail are still visible in the area. In the 19th century, the Camino Real formed the boundary of many empresario grants throughout Texas. Later, it became the county line of many of the state’s first subdivisions.
Although many different trails in Texas and elsewhere were established as caminos reales, this article for simplicity will refer to the narrow corridor of contiguous regional segments from modern Guerrero across Texas as “the Camino Real.
As was true of the earlier Camino Real that extended from Mexico City to Santa Fe, large portions of the early routes across Texas were based on Indian trails of apparent antiquity that suggest a complex network of aboriginal movement, interaction and trade. The regional trails that comprised the Camino Real included portions of Caddoan, Coahuilteco, Jumano and possibly Sanan routes of travel.
Modern highways often follow these early trails. Although widely scattered across the Texas landscape, both historical Indian trails as well as prehistoric archaeological sites occasionally have been found along Spanish colonial trails and under modern highways. The precise destinations of these trails are not clear, but they certainly led to areas once known as Cíbola, Apachería, Comanchería, la Pita and Tejas.
Most historians believe the Camino Real through Texas was developed in 1691 to link the Spanish colonial missions in East Texas with the administrative center of New Spain. And those missions were established to counter the threat of French intrusion into the northern borderlands of New Spain.
. . .
. . . Domingo Ramón, son of the commandant at Coahuila, led an expedition to Louisiana in 1716, accompanied by St. Denis.
On that trip Ramón reaffirmed the Spanish presence in East Texas by establishing several missions, including the former San Francisco de los Tejas at a new location and a new mission at Los Adaes. The journal of the Ramón expedition of 1716 also identified a series of parajes, or campsites, that became associated with a subsequent early route of the Camino Real at the beginning of the 18th century.
Landmarks along the routes of St. Denis’ journeys appear to include the 1690 site of the Mission San Francisco de los Tejas and the Trinity, San Marcos, Guadalupe and San Antonio rivers. Apparently, the route of the 1717 journey was similar to the trail blazed by the Ramón expedition the previous year. A large portion of Ramón’s trail, if not all, acted as the foundation for the primary 18th-century Spanish road between Los Adaes and the Rio Grande known as the Camino de los Tejas.
The trail’s development was strengthened by the establishment of a Spanish military outpost at Los Adaes by the expedition of 1721-22, led by the Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo.
The Routes of Texas’ Camino Real
South Texas: From the Rio Grande to San Antonio
In South Texas, the Camino Real consisted of several regional routes that crossed the Rio Grande at San Juan Bautista del Río Grande mission and presidio near the modern town of Guerrero, Coahuila. The principal routes between the Rio Grande and San Antonio were known as the Camino Pita; Upper Presidio Road; and the Lower Presidio Road, also called the Camino de en Medio, or middle road, because it was the middle of three roads leading south from San Antonio in the 18th century (the lowest route was the Laredo Road). During different decades, travelers often had a preference for a particular route, although some trails were contemporaneous and the times of their uses overlapped.
. . .
The Future of the Camino Real
The Camino Real has often been the focus of both popular and historical interest throughout the 20th century. Recently, the National Park Service proposed that it be designated a National Historic Trail and, ironically, has encountered private property-rights issues, possibly by some of the descendants of settlers associated with the historic trail.
Regardless of its political future, the significance of the Camino Real is so clearly embedded in both the history and development of the region that its importance will be recognized for generations to come.
— written by Al McGraw for the Texas Almanac 2002–2003. Mr. McGraw is an archaeologist for the Texas Department of Transportation in Austin and has worked in Texas archaeology for more than two decades at prehistoric and historical sites from the Rio Grande to East Texas. He is the author of numerous archaeological publications."