Northeast Texas was “settled” many centuries ago with the development of a complex Caddoan society, comprising many native groups and spreading across the Great Bend region of the Red River, up into Oklahoma and Arkansas, and down to the south in the Trinity and Sabine River areas. Extensive trading networks developed both across the region and also far into other areas, such as up the Red River to the prairie tribes such as the Wichita, linguistic cousins to the Caddo. Spanish and French intrusions into Caddoan areas occurred beginning with the Moscoso/DeSoto expedition in the 1540s and continuing, although infrequently, in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when a French post was established by Sieur Benard de la Harpe on the Red River in what is now northern Bowie County. The map below shows the location of La Harpe’s post along with a number of other Caddo villages north of what is now Texarkana. The underlying map excerpt is from a 1720 French map and the inset is a map of what is thought to be one of the villages visited by Teran in 1691 and shown on the site linked to here. The 1720 map also shows an approximate route of what is usually called the Hasinai Trace, a trail from the Hasanai Caddo villages in the vicinity of Nacogdoches and likely a forerunner of Trammel’s Trace.
The trail network connecting the Caddo world to other tribal groups in all directions was extensive. One of the most important trading routes led from the northeast Texas Caddo villages up the Red River to Wichita, Pawnee, and Comanche groups, even reaching the New Mexico Pueblos and, eventually, Spanish settlers (see the “Great Spanish Road” webpage on this site). At least two European travelers made the trip from La Harpe’s post (St. Louis (or San Luis) de las Cadadochos) up as far as the Taovayas (Wichita) villages near what is now Spanish Fort, Texas, on the Red River. The most intrepid European traveler along this route was the Frenchman Pierre Vidal, now usually known by his Spanish name, Pedro Vial, who “blazed” several trails across the plain, with the help of native guides who likely already knew the routes, connecting Nacogdoches, San Antonio, St. Louis, and Santa Fe, although he did not visit the Caddo villages in far northeast Texas (these were almost abandoned by this time). .
Under Spanish, then Mexican, administrative rule and with introduced European diseases and attacks from other native peoples devastating their homeland, the Caddo population diminished greatly over the 17th and 18th centuries.. Few Caddos were left in far Northeast Texas (and almost none in the Great Bend Region) in the early 19th century. Starting as early as about 1815, the first Anglo-American communities in Texas, including Pecan Point and Jonesborough, developed on the south side of the Red River in what was then Spanish Territory but, after spending some years as part of Miller County, Arkansas became Red River and Bowie Counties in the Republic of Texas. The short period between the decline of the Caddos and the rise of an Anglo-American farming society also saw several native groups from the east move into the Far Northeast Texas area, including Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Quapaw, and Cherokee, although these, along with the remaining Caddos, were almost completely displaced by Anglo-Americans in the 1830s.
Stephen F. Austin was responsible for much of the Anglo-American immigration into Texas in the 1820s and 1830s and was at least involved in the production of several maps that included northeast Texas, including one in 1829 that showed some “roads” or trails, including what may be the earliest depictions of the Ridge Road, Trammel’s Trace, the Spanish Trace and the Cherokee Trace (shown from Pecan Point rather than Jonesborough as should have been the case, although these two were connected at the time) in addition to a Washington, Arkansas to Fort Towson route. Whatever the accuracy of these routes, Austin should have been familiar with their existence as he was in Fulton, Arkansas in the early 1820s and also participated in the formation of the Wavell Colony (which never came to complete fruition) in what is now Bowie County.
People moved frequently from place to place across the centuries, and all had to find and use the best routes through the woodlands, prairies, and swamps, many of which routes had likely been used for centuries if not millennia. As most accounts of “the first” explorers in the American west said, their routes followed old Indian trails (and often with an Indian guide). Game and Indian trails developed into horse trails, which developed into pack trails, which were “built” into wagon roads, sometimes without much discernible differences. Creeks and rivers had to be crossed, using buffalo fords in some cases, particularly for major rivers like the Red, swamps had to waded, and almost impenetrable forests had to be navigated, with open prairies being a great relief. Routes changed over time as conditions changed. Trails and roads unused for only a few years got “all growed up,” as we used to say. Floods and freshets wiped out roads and changed the course of streams. Human communities developed, then disappeared, and trails were forgotten. Just like today, when old wagon roads get displaced by new paved roads which get displaced by cross-country highways, then interstates, road networks are anything but static. Nevertheless, new roads do tend to follow old ones.
By Raft, Oxcart, and Canoe
From a report available online, From Pioneer Paths to Superhighways – The Texas Highway Department Blazes Texas Trails 1917-1968, by the Texas State Library on the development of roads in Texas:
“By 1836, the year of the Texas Revolution, more than 35,000 American immigrants had settled in Texas, outnumbering the Hispanic occupants by a ratio of ten to one. Over the next fifteen years, settlers from the United States continued to pour across the border. By 1850, Texas was a U.S. state with a population of 212,000.
By any measure it was a staggering transformation. More than ever, Texas needed highways: to carry mail and freight, to carry stagecoaches and immigrant wagons, to carry the army to wage war on the Indian frontier. But roads in Texas did not keep pace. Instead, Texans remained dependent on old trails that were little more than rutted tracks, dusty in the dry months and impassable when wet. As one historian wrote, a traveler in Texas might have to journey “by raft, oxcart, horseback, canoe, and horseback again” to reach his destination.
Lack of money was only one reason for the lack of progress in road-building. As elsewhere in the United States, maintenance of the trails was delegated to counties. By law, most counties required able-bodied men to contribute up to 10 days a year to road work. But in practice, much of the work was carried out by slaves or convicts and was confined to local roads, not highways. And Texas was too large, wild, and remote to attract private investors who might build turnpikes or bridges.
By any measure, breaking a new road was difficult, back-breaking work. Using only hand tools, a crew first had to cut down trees, pull stumps, and clear brush and overhanging branches. After the road was hacked out, the crew had to remove boulders, grade the road, dig drainage ditches, add retaining walls and bridges to keep the road from washing away, and construct any necessary fords at river crossings. It was little wonder that very little road-building took place in early Texas.
Instead, the new roads simply evolved just as the Indian trails had; from the regular use of travelers, immigrants, teamsters, and wagoners beating down paths. Little by little, Texans began to clear small sections of road, while enterprising locals set up ferries or built toll bridges across rivers and streams. New Orleans had replaced Saltillo as the most important market center for Texas crops, so many of the new roads were oriented to the Gulf Coast. Others pushed north and west towards the frontier army forts. A number of Texas towns, including Sherman and Gainesville, had their roots as stagecoach stops along these early roads.”
However they came about, Texas had an extensive network of “roads” prior to the Civil War, even if many were impassable to wagons at least part of the time. The map below appeared first in the 1945 Texas Almanac and was drawn by a newspaperman named T. C. Richardson. Richardson not only studied all the documentation he could find but also travelled as much of these routes as possible over many years. In addition to his map, he made an impressive contribution in sorting out the names of all the routes and providing a brief description of each.
Roads often had several names over the years. For example, the “Ridge Road” across north Texas, including Bowie and Red River Counties, in places was also called the Road to the Comanches, the Chihuahua Trail, the Connelly Trail, and the Emigrant Road, according to Richardson’s map.
The Old Roads Google Map
Although verifiable information is often scarce, our Old Roads Google Map accessed from this website shows best estimates of the routes of some of the trails, traces, and roads that were used after the Anglo-American influx, particularly the 1820s through to the Civil War. I am very grateful to Gary Pinkerton, whose excellent research and book on Trammel’s Trace was the inspiration and starting point in the development of the maps presented in our Google map. The data and route of Trammel’s Trace on Gary’s Google map are included directly on our map, and we are very appreciative to Gary for making this information, the result of his research, available.
To see these old roads on our Google map, go here. When this map opens, one or more layers may be open but may not be the ones you wish to see. You can navigate to desired layers including Bowie County cemeteries, “Century Roads”, old trails and roads, Red River County places, etc. To see these, just check the boxes for the layers you wish to see on the legend to the left. Please keep in mind that if too many layers are checked the map will get very busy! We have also included the route and information for some of these old roads below, as taken from screenshots on the Google map. Please keep in mind that the routes shown have varying degrees of uncertainty depending on the amount of confirming evidence, particularly from head right surveys, the most reliable sources. The Old Roads Map will be updated as new information becomes available. Although few changes have been made since 2019, we are now (2024) in the process of updating and adding new roads, particularly in Southeast Arkansas. We may be making frequent changes, so each day may see edits and additions.
The link activated by the above button may not work on phones or pads. If that is the case, you can copy the url below and paste it in a browser to get the map.
Some Old Roads
Some of the old roads shown on the Google Map are described in more detail on a separate webpage here. These include
- Boston to Fulton Road
- Clarksville to Dalby Springs Road
- Clarksville to Mill Creek Road
- “New” Clarksville to Mount Pleasant Road (1853)
- DeKalb to Clarksville Road
- Jonesborough to Nacogdoches Road
- Trammel’s Trace