DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's the word on this one, friends — here's how Duane tells it. Now, there's a road that entered Texas right at this very point, and if you think that's unremarkable, consider who walked it. We're talking about a road from St.
Louis, laid down in 1813, and the names it carried into Texas read like a roll call for destiny itself. Stephen F. Austin.
His settlers. Sam Houston. James Bowie.
David Crockett. Others whose names we may never know — men and women who came down this trace and later died in the Texas Revolution. Every one of them passed through right here.
Let that settle over you a moment. From this point, the road pointed southwest. It crossed the Sulphur River at Epperson ferry, pushed south to Nacogdoches, and in doing so it stitched together the Southwest Trail with the King's Highway all the way to Mexico.
One road connecting continents, more or less. Now the man who surveyed all this was Nicholas Trammel, born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1780, and he came from a family of surveyors and scouts — that business was in his blood. He mapped many trails across this wild country, friend.
Many. But here's the thing that'll stay with you on a long stretch of highway: of all those trails he mapped, only this one bears his name. Nicholas Trammel died in LaGrange, Texas, in 1852, and Trammel's Trace is what remains.
Not a bad monument for a man with a surveyor's eye and a good pair of boots.
What the marker says
Entered Texas at this point. The 1813 road from St. Louis brought in great numbers of pioneers: Stephen F. Austin, his settlers, Sam Houston, James Bowie, David Crockett and others who died in the Texas Revolution. From here pointed southwest. Crossed the Sulphur at Epperson ferry, going south to Nacogdoches, linking "Southwest Trail" with the King's Highway to Mexico. Surveyed by Nicholas Trammel (born in Nashville, Tenn., 1780; died, LaGrange, Texas, 1852), one of a family of U. S. surveyors and scouts. Mapped many trails, but only this one bears his name. (1965)