Goliad Road

The presidio at the road's far end began on the coast. Capt. Domingo Ramón occupied the site of La Salle's French settlement on Garcitas Creek, near Lavaca Bay, on April 4, 1721, and the next spring the Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo drew its palisade in the shape of a sixteen-point star. Popularly called La Bahía, the presidio guarded the coast against the French. Its first site was confirmed in 1996, when La Salle's eight cannon, buried by Alonso De León in 1689, were found; Texas Historical Commission digs there recovered 157,726 artifacts.

What the plaque says

Goliad Road Established about 1720 by Spain as "El Camino Real a La Bahia del Espiritu Santo" ("King's Highway to Goliad"). Served for 150 years as a major emigrant, military, and trade road. Became segment of the Chihuahua Road, which connected the Texas Gulf Coast and Mexico. Indians, soldiers from Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States and Confederacy used road for their campaigns. In this vicinity the Goliad Road crossed Salado Creek and paralleled the Gonzales Road in the approach to San Antonio. Its traffic diminished only after railroads came to Texas. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 3.4 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.
• Mission San Juan — 3.6 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.
• Mission Concepción — 3.9 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.
• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 4.4 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.

More markers nearby

• Salado Valley — 0.2 mi
• Site of the Camp of Stephen F. Austin — 1.4 mi
• Saint Philip's Episcopal Church — 1.6 mi
• Edward H. White II Memorial Hangar, Brooks Air Force Base — 2.6 mi