Site of Chihuahua Road

August Santleben freighted on the Chihuahua road in its last great years. Born in Hanover in 1845 and raised near Castroville, he carried mail on horseback at fourteen, then hauled cotton to Eagle Pass during the Civil War before scouting for the Union's First Texas Cavalry. In 1867 he and Adolph Muengenberger opened the first stage line between Texas and Mexico, and by 1869 their wagons ran from San Antonio to Monterrey, Saltillo and Chihuahua. His memoir, A Texas Pioneer (1910), describes freighting by prairie schooner, Mexican oxcart and mule-drawn wagon train.

What the plaque says

Site of Chihuahua Road The Chihuahua Road was a nineteenth-century lifeline that connected Chihuahua, Mexico, with the Texas port of Indianola. Opened to exploit rich trade in Mexican silver and gold, the road eventually carried every type of goods, adventurers, settlers, soldiers, and "Forty-Niners" bound for the California gold rush. The road was traversed by many types of vehicles: stagecoaches, wagons, ox-carts, and traveling ambulances, which were light carriages with 4-foot wheels. Not until the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway came to San Antonio in 1877 did this road lose its commercial importance. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Felipe Creek — 11 mi
  The spring-fed creek that made Del Rio, rising from the third largest springs in Texas and running past swimming holes and a hike-and-bike trail through town.
• Val Verde Winery — 12 mi
  The family winery an Italian immigrant founded on Del Rio's irrigated land in 1883, which outlasted Prohibition by selling table grapes and kept Texas wine alive into the 1970s.
• Whitehead Memorial Museum — 12 mi
  A village of old Del Rio buildings set along a working irrigation canal, from an 1870 store to a 1925 doctor's office, with Judge Roy Bean buried on the grounds.
• Amistad National Recreation Area — 17 mi
  The American side of the reservoir the United States and Mexico finished in 1969 where three rivers meet, with painted shelters still reachable by boat when the water allows.

More markers nearby

• Laughlin Army Air Field — 5.5 mi
• Lt. Jack T. Laughlin — 5.5 mi
• Military Aviation in Val Verde County — 5.5 mi
• Rudolf Anderson, Jr. — 5.5 mi