THE HIGHWAY AND ITS ROMANTIC
BACKGROUND OF OID HISTORY
The Old Spanish Trail begins at Saint Augustine, Mother City of the United States, then crosses the rolling hills of North Florida to Tallahassee, Pensacola and Old ''obile. • .then the aristocratic Mississippi Gulf Coast...New Orleans and the old plantation country of Louisiana and the Evangeline Country and the riee-gr-wing eapire.. .Texas, oil empire of Beai*-mont and Houston...Gonzales, "Lexington of Texas.historic San Antonio, its notable group of old missions, its bloody battlefields, its shrines'and old world atmosphere.. .south into Old Mexico.. .west through the popular Hill Country and the vast cattle ranges of Texas...Ysleta, El Paso and that historic El Paso Valley...Las Cruces and westward through southern New Mexico and Arizona^. Doming, Lordoburg, Douglas and Bisbee the copper golcondas. Tombstone and its glamor of Helldorado...Tucson with its Spanish glow and its majestic Mission San Xavier del 3ac...Phoenix and its gardens of green gold...
Yuma with its tragic story of mission days and its epic story of the pioneer rush to California.. .the Inperial Valley...then San Diego, Mother City of California.
The highway symbolizes in these modern days the pioneer perils and achievements of old Spanish days, a history on the northern continent that reaches ffom Florida to California and rich in romancejand legend,, ehdnin old'works^ and old ruins. Those were days of Spanish splendor, of cavalier, conqueror, colonizer, padre, and of empire builders; of Columbus, Cortes and Pizarro, of Ponce de Leon, de Soto, (Sate and Coronado, and of the great orders of priests whose missions are scattered along the way.
The Spaniards, like all mortal men, dreamed of gold and glory. With expeditions worth a king's ransom they explored the green pastures and the beauty of the rivers and bays}and they struggled through jungles, deserts and mountains to despair and death while the phantom of riches raised others to follow. In South America they sought for the land of the Gilded Chief whom- they called El Dorado, they searched for the Temple of the Sun and the Enchanted City of the Caesers. In North America they searched through Arizona and New Mexico for the Seven Cities of cfbola, the fabled Cities of Gold, and in Texas and Kansas for the realms of the Gran Quivira; they sought the Great Kingdom of the Tejas, the Mountain of Silver, the Streams of Pearls, the Provinces of Wealth and the Fountain of Youth. They added luster to their period and won new empires and lost them. But through three centuries their administrators won crowns as empire builders here in this world and their padres won crowns as brothers of men in the world to come.To-dav their La Florfdas and their Nueva Esrana are the winter retreats of the people of the northern continent and through these lands the Camlnos Real of ancient days have become the artery of service for modern-day explorers.