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Nacogdoches to Natchitoches

A trip along the historic King’s Highway

by

Cheré Coen

The oldest road in Texas runs beneath and alongside Texas Highway 21; in Louisiana, El Camino Real (the “King’s Highway”) forms a rough parallel to Highway 6. Now a National Historic Trail, the road was taken by Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Stephen F. Austin, dubbed “the father of Texas.” Present-day travelers who take this route, between Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, can view historic missions, forts, colonial homes (including the oldest house in Texas), and Native American mounds. 

During colonial times the road began in Natchitoches and headed south-southwest through Texas all the way to Mexico. “It became the gateway to the rest of the United States,” said Adai Caddo Chief Rufus Davis, who spoke to visitors outside Los Adaes State Historic Site in Robeline, where remnants of the original trail, sunken hollows known as swales, can still be seen. “But the trail served our people long before it served the Spanish.” 

A thousand years ago, buffalo roamed across the nation’s prairies, including what is now the Toledo Bend region of Louisiana. They left behind trails that members of the Adai Nation would later follow to build trade routes between tribes; those same routes then availed themselves to the French and Spanish colonists.

The rural trail was named El Camino Real de Los Tejas by the Spanish who traveled the territory as far back as the early sixteenth century. Louis Juchereau St. Denis, founder of the French frontier outpost of Natchitoches, used the trail as far as the Rio Grande to trade with the Spanish. Wrote Hodding Carter in Doomed Road of Empire: The Spanish Trail of Conquest, “There is no trail of the Spaniard in the Americas that had more significance in the shaping of North American history than the King’s Highway.”

Leaving a Mark

Jeffrey Williams, a professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, loves to show visitors the deep ruts coursing through the woods about ten miles east of San Augustine, Texas. Known as the Lobanillo Swales, these trail remnants are some of the last marks made on the natural landscape by early settlers in covered wagons and horses. One stretch dips as low as twenty feet deep and twelve feet wide.

Williams has been studying and mapping these swales for years, using historical documents and archaeological surveys to locate the original El Camino trail. 

At the Los Adaes State Historic Site in Robeline, on the Louisiana side, visitors must look hard to make out the swales, but a handy road sign shows the way. Los Adaes was once the capital of Texas, established in 1721 by Spain and created to counter French encroachment from Natchitoches. Los Adaes became a vibrant trading center between the Native Americans, the French, and the Spanish as well as a popular stop along the El Camino Real.

Take the Trail

El Camino Real stretched from Natchitoches to colonial Mexico City; the 110 miles from Nacogdoches to Natchitoches is a more contained segment that focuses on early Native American and colonial history. The Charles Bright Visitor Center, home to the Nacogdoches Convention and Visitors Bureau and located in the heart of historic downtown Nacogdoches, serves as a starting point. The visitor center doubles as a museum and offers a handy overview of the town’s history. Outside, a statue of westward pioneers gives homage to the trail’s early days.

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Nacogdoches is the oldest city in Texas, established by Spain in 1716 as a mission. Nine government flags have flown over the town — as opposed to six that have flown over most of the rest of Texas—including three attempts at independence from Mexico in the early 1800s. Naturally, the town is full of some of the state’s oldest buildings, including the Sterne-Hoya House Museum and Library, built in 1830 by Nicholas Adolphus Sterne, a leader in the fight for Texas independence. 

Eastward along the trail lies San Augustine’s Mission Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Ais, established in 1717 as a trail way station and a means to convert local Native Americans. The mission is long gone, but visitors may enjoy the museum and nature trails. A thirty-two-site campground with picnic areas provides a shady resting place for travelers. 

The town of San Augustine contains many historical homes and churches and a recently restored 1927 courthouse. The 1919 jail houses a fascinating collection of Texas books and law enforcement memorabilia.

A trip off the trail to Hemphill might be in order, for this small community owns a giant and heartfelt museum. It was here in 2003 that remnants of the Space Shuttle Columbia fell to earth after disintegrating upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. Hemphill residents came out en masse to help recover the bodies of the crew and to feed and house the emergency personnel. “We felt like we were ground zero,” said Belinda Gay, vice president of the board of directors of the Patricia Huffman Smith NASA “Remembering Columbia” Museum. The museum contains numerous artifacts donated by the crew’s family and NASA and provides both an educational experience on both space travel and the disaster.

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Before heading into Louisiana, stop by the two-story, hand-hewed log structure known as the Gaines-Oliphint House, built in 1818 by James D. Taylor Gaines and considered probably the oldest pre-Republic, Anglo-American structure still in existence today. Like many pioneering Americans, Gaines came west and operated a ferry and tavern on the Sabine River. 

On the Louisiana side is Fort Jesup, built in 1822 to establish peace in the lawless Sabine River area, and Los Adaes, the early Spanish fortress. In Natchitoches, the oldest town in Louisiana, the trail ends at the full-sized replica of Fort St. Jean Baptiste; the original was created by city founder Louis Juchereau St. Denis in 1714. Costumed re-enactors offer daily tours at the state historic site located on Cane River Lake.

Where to Stay and Eat

There are numerous bed and breakfasts in Nacogdoches, including the newly restored Mockingbird Suites, built in 1899 by German architect Diedrich Rulfs and located only a block from downtown. The Liberty Bell wine bar and restaurant, located in a former nineteenth-century general store, serves up pub fare and live music. The Blue Horse Bakery, also in a historic building, will satisfy a sweet tooth with its cupcakes, cookies, and other sweet treats.

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In Louisiana, Cypress Bend Resort offers ninety-five guest rooms and both fine and casual dining overlooking Toledo Bend. The resort also features an eighteen-hole championship golf course and nature trails on its six hundred rolling acres.

Natchitoches is known for its wide variety of accommodations, from modern hotels such as the newly opened Chateau Saint Denis Hotel to bed and breakfasts.  Don’t leave town without a stop at Lasyone’s Meat Pie Restaurant, Natchitoches’ oldest outlet for its signature treat.

Why Two Names?

It’s a regular question why two towns only 110 miles apart would have similar names but different pronunciations and spellings. The common answer relates the tale of two sons of a Caddo chief living alongside the Sabine River, the natural border of present-day Texas and Louisiana. The story has the chief sending one son three days toward the setting sun and one son three days toward the rising sun. Each son created a village upon his arrival.

Pete Gregory, an anthropology professor at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, provided a more academic answer. “That is a made-up story,” Gregory said, of the two sons’ tale. He added, with a laugh, “It’s what you call fake news.”

Gregory, who carried out excavations at Los Adaes and studied the Caddo tribe, insists that the Caddo named sites based on natural elements. Natchitoches means place of pawpaw, while Nacogdoches means place of hickory, he said.  g

El Camino Real de los Tejas

nps.gov/elte/index.htm 

Nacogdoches

visitnacogdoches.org

Natchitoches

natchitoches.com

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