DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Pinta Trail, up in Gillespie County. Now settle in, because this road beneath your wheels has got some deep memory underneath it. The Pinta Trail — and we're talkin' about a route that didn't start with any map or survey crew or government commission.
Its origin is attributed to nomadic Plains Indian tribes. They found the way first. Across the hills, down through the draws, trackin' water and game and passage through country that didn't give ground easy.
And what they discovered became something that other people kept findin' useful, generation after generation. That's the kind of trail this was. Early Spanish and Mexican expeditions followed the general route of it — not blazing new territory so much as following footsteps already worn into the land.
The trail extended from San Antonio de Bexar all the way to the San Saba River near what is today Menard. That's a long reach of country, and it carried people through it for a good long while. Then came 1845, and German immigrants took to surveying part of the route, turning a stretch of that old trail into something a wagon could manage.
A road, proper. And then — well, then came 1849, and the discovery of gold in California, and suddenly everybody wanted a way west. U.S.
Military companies came through, utilizin' the trail, seekin' to open new routes to the western states. The Pinta Trail, born of Plains Indian travel, now movin' soldiers and dreamers toward distant gold. But trails don't last forever, and this one felt the pressure of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the railroads came.
Use of the trail declined with the advent of those iron roads, the way it always goes when something faster comes along. Still, what a run it had — from nomadic paths, to Spanish boots, to German survey crews, to gold-rush military columns. This marker was placed in 1986, as part of the Texas Sesquicentennial commemoration of 1836 to 1986.
And the road you're on right now? It's still runnin' through the same old hills.
What the marker says
Origin of the Pinta Trail is attributed to nomadic Plains Indian tribes. Early Spanish and Mexican expeditions followed the general route of the trail, which extended from San Antonio de Bexar to the San saba River near present Menard. A survey by German immigrants in 1845 provided a wagon road over part of the trail, and, after the discovery of gold in California in 1849, the trail was utilized by U.S. Military companies seeking to open new routes to the western states. Use of the trail declined with the advent of railroads in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986