La Bahia Road

Farther east, in Independence, the old road was the main street. The Handbook of Texas calls it La Bahia, Opelousas or the Lower Road and says it began as an east-west Indian trail, a path made by Native peoples, and later served as a cattle trail under the Opelousas name. By the late 1820s travelers on it found lodging at what is now the Blanton Block, limestone buildings that held an inn, a stage and mail depot and a store. An Independence newspaper noted in October 1877 that droves of horses had passed through, bound for Louisiana.

What the plaque says

La Bahia Road One of the first overland routes used by European explorers of Texas, La Bahia Road was originally an east-west Indian trail in southeastern Texas and Louisiana. Earlier it may have been an animal trail. Although not as famous, or long, as El Camino Real (the San Antonio Road), La Bahia is probably older and it figured quite importantly in the movement of explorers, soldiers, traders, and settlers across Texas. Possibly the first European to set foot on the road was La Salle, who explored for France in this area during 1685-87. Almost certainly it was traveled by the Spaniard Alonso De Leon, who searched for the French intruders in 1689. From 1812 on, the trail and its westernmost town, La Bahia (now Goliad), served agents of both war and peace. The Gutierrez-Magee Expedition, part of Mexico's revolt against Spain, used the road in 1812-13. In 1821 the first Anglo-American colonists in Texas, the vanguard of the "Old 300", came down La Bahia into this area. During the 1836 Texas Revolution, the road found use by troops of the Texan army; Col. James Fannin and his 400 men were massacred near the road--in Goliad. In the 20th century, La Bahia's route helped surveyors map modern Texas highways. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 7.9 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 14 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 20 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• Glenblythe Plantation, Home of Thomas Affleck — 1.1 mi
• Birthplace of Hedwig T. Kniker — 1.4 mi
• St. Peter's Lutheran Church — 1.4 mi
• Holly Oaks — 2.2 mi