Old Houston Road

The railroad that shortened this road ended at a cotton town. William Alley arranged in 1859 to bring the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway to his land on the Colorado River, giving ground for shops, a roundhouse and a depot. When the line reached Alleyton in 1860, the town became the terminus of the southernmost railroad in Texas and the largest town in Colorado County. In the Civil War it was the start of the cotton road, where bales came off the cars and went by wagon to Mexico to slip past the Union blockade.

What the plaque says

Old Houston Road Near this site. Link from Old Spanish Texas to Austin Colony and ports of Houston, Galveston. Vital to freight and passenger travel. In early days, numerous streams were forded or swum. It was common for a carriage to overturn in a river, uncommon for no one to be injured. Adults often rode horseback. Sleds and wagons hauled children, baggage. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railroad, started in 1852, built to Alleyton by 1860, shortned the way to Houston. In the Civil War, 1861-65, used for armies, goods, cotton, from coast, east Texas and Louisiana. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — 2.5 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 2.6 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Antonio River Walk — 2.6 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 3.0 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• Saint Philip's College — 0.5 mi
• Second Baptist Church of San Antonio — 0.5 mi
• Jacobs Chapel United Methodist Church — 0.9 mi
• Hamilton P. Bee — 1.1 mi