El Camino Real runs through Nacogdoches, Texas
Tejas National Historic Trail, will be the site of a miles-long “Sale on the
Trail” on the weekend of May 1-2, 2009.
In Nacogdoches – State Highway 21 - or Main Street and Douglass Road – follow The El Camino Real, which means “King’s Highway” in Spanish. El Camino is the oldest road in Texas.
Begun as one of the many well-used Indian trails in Texas, the Spanish
expanded and improved the route it to connect a series of Spanish
missions and posts between Monclova, Mexico, and Los Adaes, the first
capital of the province of Texas (in what is now the
Robeline/Natchitoches area in northwestern Louisiana. The trail runs
about 1,000 miles long from its easternmost point in Natchitoches,
Louisiana, through the piney woods and rolling hills of Texas to the
arid lands of Old Mexico. The Camino Real is truly a path that leads
through history.
Today much of the original El Camino is still visible, lying along
scenic rural roads with some of the most spectacular scenery in Texas
and Louisiana. Travelers can follow in the footsteps of Spanish
missionaries (from 1691), the Mexican and Texan armies (1835), American
settlers, and personages such as Kit Carson, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie,
Sam Houston, Santa Anna, Stephen F. Austin and many more.
The “Sale on the Trail” event, planned and promoted by the El
Camino Real Caddo Region Trail Partners, which includes the Nacogdoches Convention & Visitors, has been scheduled to promote tourism and acquaint participants with the beautiful highway so important to early history in Louisiana and Texas.
Land owners and businesses from Natchitoches, La. to Crockett, TX will
hold yard sales, flea markets, festivals, trade shows, sidewalk sales,
etc. along this famous trail, providing a wonderful weekend of touring
and shopping.
Anyone in Nacogdoches interested in setting up downtown
should contact the Main Street office at 936-559-2573.
Historic Downtown Nacogdoches will participate by hosting their
“First Saturday Sidewalk Sale” on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009.
Merchants will feature a variety of great finds, unique specialty items,
and one of kind antiques.
Those interested in participating in this first annual “Sale on the
Trail” are encouraged to take advantage of a great chance to shop, sell, or see the sites on the remarkable El Camino Real.
For more information, please contact Liz Ware, San Augustine Chamber of Commerce Director, at (936)275-3610, or Ellen Melton, El Camino Real Trail Partners representative in Sabine County at (409) 625-4876.
For more information, check out these websites:
elcaminorealtx.com/trailPartners.html
sanaugustinetx.com
visitnacogdoches.org
