page_title: El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail
section_title: Route
hierarchical_section_title: El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail / Route
caption_attribution_description: English: Kings Highway Marker. I took photo with Canon camera of El Camino Real marker in Cotulla, TX.
context_page_description: The El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail is a National Historic Trail covering the U.S. section of the El Camino Real de Los Tejas, a thoroughfare from the 18th-century Spanish colonial era in Spanish Texas instrumental in the settlement, development and history of Texas. The National Park Service designated the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail as a unit in the National Historic Trail system in 2004.
  The modern highways Texas 21 and Louisiana 6 roughly follow the original route of the trail.
context_section_description: The historic trail ran from the capitol and central Viceroyalty of New Spain — present day Mexico City — winding through Saltillo, Monterrey, Laredo (on the modern Texas border), San Antonio, and Nacogdoches, before reaching the
  Louisiana border at the Sabine River. The river crossing was a ferry, in use since around 1795, as the Chabanan Ferry. James Taylor Gaines purchased the ferry in 1819, and it became known as the Gaines Ferry. Gaines sold the ferry in 1843 and at some point it began to be called Pendleton's Ferry. The ferry remained in service until being replaced by the Gaines-Pendleton Bridge in 1937.
  After crossing the river the trail went through the Neutral Strip and Many, Louisiana, before ending at Natchitoches in modern Louisiana. The trail has a 2,500-mile length.  For centuries the Native Americans had used the trail routes for trading between the Great Plains and Chihuahuan Desert regions and essentially created the road. The El Camino Real de Los Tejas was first followed and marked by Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 1700s. It was one of several named El Camino Real, or 'royal road,' that connected the Spanish possessions in North America with Mexico City.
caption: El Camino Real marker in Cotulla in La Salle County in south Texas
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