Opelousas Trail

Cattle traffic on this road has a starting date. Spain lifted its embargo on trade between Texas and Louisiana in 1778, and in 1779 Francisco Garcia left San Antonio with 2,000 steers for New Orleans. W. T. Block estimates that about two million steers reached New Orleans before the first cattle trains crossed the Sabine in 1881, and that overland movement neared 50,000 head a year by 1855. Drovers lost animals to drowning in the Neches, watched them sink to the hips in marsh mud, and rode out stampedes and blizzards. This marker stands at China, on US 90.

What the plaque says

Opelousas Trail Named for one of several Atakapan-speaking Native American tribes originally connected by this trail, the Opelousas ran from La Bahia (later Goliad) to the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Evidence of cultural interchange between tribes indicates the presence of such a trail for hundreds of years. Spanish explorers, soldiers, and vaqueros employed this route. by the 1750s, French traders had been traveling the trail for about twenty years. After 1820 settlers began to arrive from Louisiana and other southern states. Don Martin de Leon and Anglo cattlemen such as James Taylor White and William B. Duncan herded large droves of cattle, mules, and horses to market in New Orleans. A post route was established along the Opelousas in early 1836. That spring, Texas pioneers fled along this path during the "Runaway Scrape." Later Santa Anna was led down the trail toward New Orleans and ultimately to Washington, D.C., as a prisoner of war. A stage and mail route followed the trail after 1850; the Confederate Army used the road to move troops during the Civil War. Use of the route continued throughout the 20th century. Many segments of the trail were incorporated into U. S. Highway 90 from Liberty to Orange. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McFaddin-Ward House — 15 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 16 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• Village Creek State Park — 18 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center — 25 mi
  A state archives and museum north of Liberty with an exhibit on Southeast Texas history and a campus of historic buildings, including an 1848 house and an 1898 church.

More markers nearby

• Stephen Jackson — 7.3 mi
• Sour Lake, C.S.A. — 7.3 mi
• City of Beaumont — 8.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Beaumont — 11 mi