A pink granite DAR marker was placed in 1918 along Nacogdoches Road at the bridge over Salado Creek as part of a statewide project by the Daughters of the American Revolution to mark the route of the Old San Antonio Road.
When the State Loop 410 was being built in the 1950s, this DAR marker was in the path of construction and needed to be moved from its original placement at the south end of the bridge over salado Creek. The DAR marker stood at its new location at the junction of the State Loop 410 and the Nacogdoches road from the 1950s-late 1970s.
In the mid-1970s, it was clear that State Loop 410 had to be upgraded to 4+ lanes and become an interstate highway. Source: Wikipedia (
visit link) The DAR marker was in the way of road construction AGAIN, and was placed in storage until the road project was complete, with the idea that it would be would be reinstalled somewhere at the IH-Loop 410/ Nacogdoches Road intersection.
In 1979, a state historic marker for the El Camino Real was authorized and sponsored by what was then First Federal Savings Bank of San Antonio, whose offices were along the Loop 410 at Nacogdoches Road. When Loop 410 construction was completed in the early 1980s, it made sense to co-locate the state historic marker and the DAR marker together at the new First Federal Building, a 10-story building built in 1982, not far from the DAR marker's original site along Old Nacogdoches Road.
The marker is located at 1100 NW IH-Loop 410, at the One Castle Hills building.
The marker reads as follows:
"KING'S HIGHWAY
CAMINO REAL
Old San Antonio Road
Marked by the
Daughters of the
American Revolution
and the State of Texas
A. D. 1918"
The co-located historical marker reads:
"ROUTE OF EL CAMINO REAL
The main thoroughfare of early Texas, The Camino Real, or "King's Highway", followed ancient Indian and buffalo trail. It stretched 1,000 miles from Mexico to present Louisiana. Domingo Teran de los Rios, first Governor of Texas, blessed the central section of the road in 1691. Called the "Trail of the Padres", it linked Monclova, Mexico, with the Spanish Missions of East Texas. Over the centuries, priests, soldiers, traders, and settlers used the Camino Real. The French adventurer T. Denis probably traveled the road from Lousiana to the Rio Grande in 1714.
San Antonio was a major stop on this frontier highway. Moses Austin followed the Camino Real to San Antonio in 1820 seeking colonization rights from Spain. Many Anglo-American settlers called it the "old San Antonio Road". It joined this city with Nacogdoches, San Augistine, and other East Texas Settlements.
In 1915 the Texas Legislature appropriated $5,000 to mark the historic roadway across the state. The Daughters of the American Revolution, along with other patriotic groups, endorsed the project. V.N. Zivley surveyed the route and indicated the spacing for granite markers every five miles. Today many modern highways follow the path of the Camino Real.
(1979)
[incise on base: Marker Sponsor: First Federal Savings and
The El Camino Real de los Tejas has been designated a National Historic Trail through the states of Texas and New Mexico. (
visit link)
"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."