Old San Antonio Road - History

History

In 1690, Spanish explorer Alonso de León, following various Indian and buffalo trails, crossed the Rio Grande on his way to East Texas to establish missions, effectively blazing the Old San Antonio Road. In 1691 (the generally accepted "birth year" of the road), Domingo Terán de los Ríos took additional missionaries to East Texas following much the same course as traveled by De León. In 1693, Gregorio de Salinas Varona further defined the course of the road while bringing relief supplies from Monclova.

The Old San Antonio Road was not a single road, but a network of trails with different routes at different times. The trail's path was dictated by things as diverse as weather and Indian threats.

During the time that Texas was a Spanish, then Mexican, state, the road was used as a major thoroughfare between Mexico City and East Texas. With Texas independence, however, trade between Mexico and Texas waned, while Mexico's trade with the United States began to increase. The old route from San Antonio to Louisiana, now called the Camino Arriba, was still a vital link for Texans to the United States. During the 1860s, the old road had a brief revival as a supply line from the Texas interior to the Confederacy, and for the flow of cotton to Mexico as a means to circumvent the ever-tightening Union blockade.

After the Civil War, the name Camino Arriba faded and the road was called the Old San Antonio Road. By the 1870s, with the coming of the railroad, the roadway between San Antonio and Mexico, had all but disappeared. It was then called the Lower Presidio Road.