Central National Road of the Republic of Texas

The Handbook of Texas describes where the road ended. It ran northeast across Lamar County through Paris, then along the Red River to Travis Wright's landing, six miles above old Jonesborough, the head of navigation in 1844 and later the site of Kiomatia. There it joined the military road to Fort Gibson and old routes to settlements in Arkansas. The road did not stay busy. As the frontier moved west and new towns grew, other routes gained importance, and Preston Road to the west drew off much of the north-south traffic.

What the plaque says

Central National Road of the Republic of Texas Designed as a military highway, intended to make linkage with United States military road built to the north of the Red River in the 1820s. This was part of the national effort of Republic of Texas to open a good road system. Congress in 1839 passed a bill for a road east from Washington-on-the-Brazos to the Sabine River; 1841 legislation called for a road from the Nueces to the Red River and another from Austin to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Central National Road was created in 1844, to reach from mouth of Elm Fork on the Trinity to Kiomatia Crossing on the Red. It went down a main street in Paris, which was founded in 1844; near its south end was the 1841 John Neely Bryan home around which the city of Dallas originated. Major George W. Stell surveyed the 130-mile route. Plans called for a road 30 feet wide and clear of tree stumps over 12 inches high. For each mile of road built (including bridges), grants of 160 acres of public lands were offered. Commissioners were Roland W. Box, Harrison County; James Bradshaw, Nacogdoches County; William M. Williams and Jason Wilson, Lamar County; John Yeary, Fannin County. The route is roughly followed by later roads. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 0.8 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 1.4 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Eiffel Tower — 2.9 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 22 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• Old Cemetery of Paris — 0.5 mi
• Burial Site of John S. Chisum — 0.5 mi
• Paris — 0.5 mi
• The Paris Fire, 1916 — 0.6 mi