Please click here for the latest version of El Correo - El Camino Real's newsletter.

The National Park Service, National Trails Intermountain Region (NTIR) based in Santa Fe, NM has launched their very first facebook page for El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. The NTIR sees this as a collaborative effort where association members and trail partners work together and share and post information on each other's facebook pages to increase our collective fan base (i.e. 'likes'). The NTIR will be using the facebook page to share relevant information about the trail's history, culture, as well as information on things to do and see along the trail. The page will also be used to disseminate information about future events pertaining to the trail. Please visit our facebook page at: www.facebook.com/elcaminorealdelostejasnationalhistorictrail and be sure to 'like' us! See you on facebook!

El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association is a member of the Partnership for the National Trails System (PNTS).  The PNTS is an entity composed of 34 organizations supporting America’s national scenic and historic trails.  As the stewards of America’s National Trails System, the PNTS is commemorating “A Decade for the National Trails,” spanning the time period 2008 to 2018.  The Decade will conclude in 2018 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the National Trails System Act.

June 1st is special for El Camino Real de los Tejas in more ways than one.  Most significantly, on June 1, 1690, Spanish explorer and governor of Coahuila Alonso de Leon and Fray Damian Massanet founded the first mission in Texas:  Mission San Francisco de los Tejas. 
     With the establishment of the mission, Spanish missionary aspirations and El Camino Real were established.  Over 300 years later, we celebrate this nationally significant event in El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail.

The Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio is seeking proposals for bids for an exhibit it is creating that is focused on Spanish, Mexican, Tejano, and Canary Islander influences in Texas, and the central theme to link it all is El Camino Real de los Tejas NHT.  Please see this link for more information on the bidding process. 

Preservation Texas did an article on our association in their most recent newsletter.  Please click this link for more information.

Please see this link for more information about the Sale on the Trail taking place from Crockett, Texas to Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Please click this link for El Correo - Vol. IV, No. 2.

On March 15, 2013, association president, Dr. Lucile Estell was honored with the Historic Preservation Medal by the Daughters of the American Revolution.  It is the highest honor that the DAR can give for a person’s work toward historic preservation.  The honor was bestowed on Dr. Estell because of her extensive work on El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, her authoring books on Rockdale and Marshall, Texas, serving with the Milam County Historic Commission, and much more.  Congratulations, Lucile!  You make us proud!

Los Adaes:  A Stop along the Underground Railroad

by

Rolonda Teal, MA

Introduction

Louisiana historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall clearly identifies the route from New Orleans to Natchitoches and then to Los Adaes as an 18th century route for enslaved people seeking their freedom in her book Africans in Colonial Louisiana:

“Slaves escaping from New Orleans sometimes headed up the Mississippi River into the Red River and thence to Natchitoches, a French military post on the Red River near Spanish territory. Natchitoches to Adayes, a Spanish military post on the Red River in what is now Texas, was an established [slave] escape route” (Hall 1992:148).(1)