Cibolo Crossing on the Gonzales Road

The Gonzales Road was also a county line. The 1842 act creating Guadalupe County named it as the county's southern boundary. In 1846 a new act moved the line down the Cibolo to Rocky Ford, below present Stockdale. Wilson County, cut out in 1860 as a V-shaped piece of Bexar and Karnes counties, did not close the top of the V until 1869, and an 1874 act settled the boundary dispute. Above the ford stood the Deaf Smith oak, the tree behind the spy story, which lightning, fire and flood weakened until it fell in 2014.

What the plaque says

Cibolo Crossing on the Gonzales Road DURING THE MEXICAN ADMINISTRATION OF TEXAS, A ROAD CONNECTED THE SETTLEMENT OF GONZALES IN THE DEWITT COLONY TO SAN ANTONIO DE BEJAR, KNOWN AS THE GONZALES ROAD. APPROXIMATELY TWENTY TWO MILES EAST OF SAN ANTONIO, THE ROAD CROSSED THE CIBOLO CREEK, OR RIO CIBOLO. FROM ITS ORIGINS NEAR PRESENT DAY BOERNE TO ITS JUNCTION WITH THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER, THE CIBOLO ETCHED ITS COURSE THROUGH THE COUNTRYSIDE AND ALLOWED FOR A FEW NATURAL FORDS. THE GONZALES ROAD INCORPORATED ONE SUCH NATURAL FORD THROUGH THE FRANCISCO HERRERA LAND GRANT AND THE ERASTUS "DEAF" SMITH LAND GRANT. THIS NATURAL FORD WAS KNOWN AS THE CIBOLO CROSSING. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE CIBOLO CROSSING APPEAR IN LETTERS AND DIARIES OF PARTICIPANTS OF THE TEXAS REVOLUTION. IT IS DESCRIBED AS A RENDEZVOUS AND MARSHALING POINT FOR EARLY SETTLERS AND TROOPS, INCLUDING ATTEMPTS TO BRING REINFORCEMENTS TO THE DEFENSE OF THE ALAMO. ERASTUS "DEAF" SMITH, THE OWNER OF LAND ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE CROSSING, IS SAID TO HAVE SPIED ON THE MEXICAN TROOPS FROM A TREE NEAR THE CROSSING AS TROOPS PREPARED TO RETRIEVE A CANNON FROM THE GONZALES COLONY IN 1835. IN ADDITION, ON FEBRUARY 28, 1836, CAPTAIN J. J. TUMLINSON AND CAPTAINS ALBERT MARTIN, JOHN W. SMITH AND JUAN SEGUIN TOOK RELIEF FORCES TO THE CIBOLO CREEK CROSSING TO AWAIT FANNIN'S FORCES. WITH THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS BY THE U. S. IN 1845 AND THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO IN 1848, THE GONZALES ROAD WAS LATER INTEGRATED INTO A ROUTE THROUGH YORKTOWN. THE ORIGINAL CROSSING AT CIBOLO CREEK WAS ABANDONED. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CIBOLO CROSSING ON THE GONZALES ROAD REMAINS CRITICAL TO EVENTS SURROUNDING TEXAS INDEPENDENCE AND HISTORY. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 21 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 22 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 23 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 23 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.

More markers nearby

• Concrete Cemetery — 0.6 mi
• Claiborne Rector — 0.7 mi
• Immanuel Lutheran Church — 1.2 mi
• La Vernia — 1.5 mi