SPANISH HISTORY IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES Tho Old Spanish Trail Com?try Along the Gulf of Ma:sico and the Mexican Borderlands
By Harral Ayres
From the old Spanish city of Saint Augustins on the Atlantic Coast to the old
Spaniel?, city of San Diego on the Pacific Coast the Old Spanish Trail threads its s/ay thru old Spanish cities across the continent.. In the £a,-t~ihe lure of the •1'vlf of Mexico. In the West-the Mexican Borderlands, and the highways down into that inv.eresting country of Spanish and Mexican achievement and of legends and relics of Antec races,
II
SPANISH MISSION AND ADMINISTRATIVE PORKS In the present United States, Spanish mission and administrative works -were spread from Flori.da to California* The earliest were in Florida.;. Georgia and Souoh Carolina; tho latest, in California,
The mission establishments. as a rule, embraced cathedral--lime churches of stone, cement or other enduring material, with vocational buildings3 livestock ranches end irrigated farms. They became havens of hospitality and centers of culture in a primitive and strange world* Oft,an the missions were the frontier posts.; the padres braving the frontper dangers, and auan martyrdom if it came, and often it did conoo The five missions at Son .Antonio, Texas, reached the highest degrees of architectural refinements and majesty* In the Tucson---Nogales country of Arizona and western Mexico another group of noble buildings and communal enterprises spread over those valleys and deserts,. They were also spread over Now Mexico...,.and thru the El Paso Valley,oand in South and East Texas.....and in California from San Diego to Sonoma, 600 mi. north.
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FRENCH AND SPANISH WORKS IN OLD LOUISIANA. Old Louisiana was Fronoh territory after 169.9, with Biloxi, Mobile and New Orleans the first settlements. French life and traditions aro swrong thru there and westward in Louisiana, and up the Mississippi, the Red- the Mobile and other rivers. Spain ruled Old Louisiana from. 1769 to 1900 and interesting old. Spanish works are in the old French Quarter (Nieux Carro) in New Orleans. Creoles arc- the descendants of Fronoh-Spanish unions; many families tracing their ancestry bo tho nobility of both empires.
Vest on the highway and on tho storied Bayou Teohe, .140 mi. from New Orleans, is New Iberia, settled by Spaniards from the Canary Islands. New Iberia moans New Spain; Spaniards were Iberians anciently. Today that is the heart of the..'Evangeline Country immortalised by Longfellow.tho alluring ToohcCountry.....the land of tho French-Acadians.	North 6 mi. is St. Martir.vilie, homo cf Evangeline.
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THREE CENTURIES OF SPANISH POKER, PROGRESS AND DECLINE Spanish conquests and colonisation, were well established the first, half century following the discovery of Amorio?.,; in that early period vast territory was brought under the Spanish flag. The Spanish Era continued for tlir-oo centuries before the wars for independence destroyed Spain’s New Vo.via empire in North, Central and South Americas Spain began with conquests and carnage and rose to tho creation cf the noblest works in history for the benefit of subject races. Whan Spanish power ended, Indians and white vandals destroyed many missions and their properties: others stand in majesti ruins with their mcvveling story for modern-day travelers; others aro still in sar vice and their irrigating systems still servo ;aankind as they have for centuries 0 c -all eloquent heritages cf the Spanish conquering spirit.
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TWO CENTURIES SPANNING THE CONTINENT More than two centuries passe-d before tv first faint trail ooonectud Saint Augustine, Florida with San Diego, California.
Spain founded San Agurtin in 1565 and San Diego do Alcald' in 176.9--and they were
the beginning of colonisation in Florida and in California, a span of 204 years lithe settlement on the Atlantic to the settlement or. the Pacific. During those years many settlements wero mode in this southern boraorland country and trails grartuaily developed from cne se-ttlemont to another. Tho modern Old Spanish Trail follows, as nearly as a modern highway can, those primitive pionoer trails*
THE EARLY	The	early	settlements	along	the highway and their date
; . . '	1565......ianta -aria de Galvez de Pensacola, 1559 and 1698...
caint Louis do la mobile, 1702 and 1711.....Biloxi, 1699.....HooveHe Orleans
.............  Ib““-	1778......*»	d.	B.„r;	   Sooorro'and