If you Google “Great Spanish Road”, the first web site given is from the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History, and it says that “The Spaniards developed the first known trail in Oklahoma for which any records are available. Known as the Great Spanish Road to the Red River, it originated in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and terminated in Natchitoches, Louisiana.”
This Encyclopedia entry is drawn from an early paper by Grant Foreman, the best known of Oklahoma 20th century historians, who said in a 1923 paper in Chronicles of Oklahoma, “During the Spanish possession of the Louisiana Purchase it (the Great Spanish Road) was employed by the priests, traders, and trappers of that nationality….”
In this paper Foreman also quotes an old frontiersman who grew up in what is now Red River County, Simon Cockrell, who, in an 1888 deposition for the Greer County Supreme Court case, noted “…the old Spanish trail, running up Red River from Natchitoches to Santa Fe. This was an ancient trail deeply cut and rutted by heavy Mexican cart wheels.” There are numerous other 19th century references to this road and appearances in maps, starting in the 1820s
But, did a Santa Fe to Natchitoches Road really exist?
Maybe. Maybe not. But early on there were a number of routes that were known, at least in parts, that a very knowledgeable and hardy traveler could have followed from Santa Fe to Natchitoches or vice versa. We have yet to find documentation of any particular traveler who ever made the whole trip, at least in the 19th century–the intrepid French/Spanish explorer Pedro Vial went from Santa Fe to Natchitoches in one trip in 1789, although he didn’t follow the route shown here after leaving the Red River. Many travelers used at least parts of it, and there are stories, such as Simon Cockrell’s, of extensive use of “Mexican” traders going between Santa Fe and Nacogdoches or Natchitoches in the 1700s.
We have developed a Google map (see excerpts above) showing our best guess at a likely complete Santa Fe to Natchitoches route as it might have been used by a plucky traveler in the 1820-1860 period and also some of the routes used by other travelers, including Anthony Glass in 1808, Josiah Gregg in 1839 (and later), and Capt. Randolph Marcy in 1849 and 1852. This Google map and associated historical information was first presented at the Historical Society of New Mexico conference in Alamogordo in 2018 and will continue to be improved as time goes on.
The likely route shown here, at least in parts, was well used in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The most used route and the one that is shown, albeit vaguely on most early 19th Century maps, as the “Road to the Red River,” went across Glorieta Pass through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Santa Fe, following the same path as the later Santa Fe Trail. It then followed the Canadian River across eastern New Mexico and what is now the Texas Panhandle into Oklahoma. At some point, probably near what is now the community of Borger, Texas, the route cut across and south to the North Fork of the Red River (then called the Washita or “False Washita” River), following this down to meet the main fork of the Red River.
This Great Spanish Road or “Road to the Red River” was also sometimes called the “Santa Fe to Natchitoches Road,” as there were well-followed paths that went beyond the “Road to the Red River” from Santa Fe to extend to Nacogdoches, Texas and from there along El Camino Real de los Tejas to Natchitoches, Louisiana. After reaching the main Red River, this route went along the north side crossing it to the south side at one of several locations, which changed over time and circumstances. It then hit “the famous Texas Ridge Road.” The Ridge Road generally followed the divide between the Red and Sulphur Rivers across northeast Texas. It extended on through what is now Texarkana and on to either the Red River ford, and later, ferry at Fulton, Arkansas, on Trammel’s Trace or straight east to Dooley’s Ferry on Red River. The Ridge Road was also sometimes identified as the Chihuahua Trail (or Connellys’ Trail), the Choctaw Trail, and the Road to the Comanches (shown as such on an 1945 map by James Dawson available at the Southwest Arkansas Research Archives in Washington, Arkansas). The Ridge Road likely hit the “Spanish Trace” or western route of Trammel’s Trace somewhere close to what is now Avery, Texas. An alternate route to the south would have been the Jonesborough to Nacogdoches Road, which was to the west of the Spanish Trace. The Spanish Trace went south and met the main route of Trammel’s Trace near Unionville in Cass County, Texas. It then followed Trammel’s Trace down to Nacogdoches and then across El Camino Real de las Tejas from there to Natchitoches.
Note that the use of the word “road” for any of these routes hardly means a highway in the modern sense, although in some cases, such as Trammel’s Trace, trees had been cut and log bridges constructed to provide a path that wagons could traverse, albeit not without difficulty. The “Ridge Road” in some areas likely did seem like a highway to those travelers (such as Captain Randolph Marcy) used to rough and almost impassable trails through forests and bogs, as it was relatively level, high, and dry, as was some of the “Spanish Road” up the North Fork of the Red River in Oklahoma as it followed the high ground between major water courses (the preferred route of Marcy).