CENTURIES OF ROMANTIC EXPLORATION
THE
ZERO
MILESTONES
St. Augustine
San Antonio
San Diego
The stone at St. Augustine was erected in 1921 to perpetuate Old Spanish Trail history locally and should serve ns the zero monument for that terminal.
The stone at San Antonio was dedicated 1921 by Governor Pat Neff, city, state, federal and army officials, women’s clubs and the Old Freighters Association.
The zero stone nt San Diego was dedicated 1923 by an address of president Coolidge rend by Col. Ed. Fletcher of San Diego.
As the highway is built on its permanent location the mileage will be accurately surveyed and mileposts of historical significance will be placed. The Women’s Department of Beautification is now inviting designs for these mileposts.
> OLD •	%
SPANISH- O TRAIL'S

The Old Spanish Trail connects the play, grounds of Florida with the playground of California and links the playgrounds that lie between. It will bring to the citiei and towns along the way a continual tide of tourist and automobile travel and a permanent pleasure to the people. It will revive and keep alive the remarkable his-tory of old Spanish days, a history on the northern continent that reaches from Flor-HEADOUARTERs!swjANTONIO.TEX ida to California and offers historical associations more romantic than anything In the land. Those were the days of Spanish splendor, of Cavalier and Conqueror, of Columbus, Cortez and Pi/.arro, of Ponce de Leon, De Soto and Coronado and of the great orders of priests whose missions are scattered along the Trail. The romance and riches of Mexico drew prince and peasant. From Mexico the old trails carried the adventurers into the South and Southwest: into the New Spain of their hopes.
The Spaniards dreamed of gold and glory, and with expeditions worth a King’s ransom 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 Caesars. In North America they searched thru Arizona and New Mexico for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold, and in Texas and Kansas for the realms of the Gran Quivera; 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. Today the Floridas and the New Spain of those days are he winter retreats of the people of the North American continent.
THE OLD TRAILS
St. Augustine, 1565, the oldest city in the United States, is the beginning of the Old Spanish Trail on the Atlantic coast. San Diego. (Saint James), 17C9, the beginning of California, is the terminus of the Old Spanish Trail on the Pacific coast. Midway lies San Antonio (Saint Anthony), 1718, Headquarters of the Old Spanish Trail and anciently an important mission and military center of New Spain. West from San Antonio is El Paso (El Paso del Norte—the Pass of the North), rich in the history of the earliest days. North of El Paso lies Santa Fe (Holy Faith), settled 1609 it became the second oldest city in the United States, and seat of missions, colonizing and government. Pensacola, El Paso and other places also lay claim to earliest settlements. Old Mexico was conquered by Cortez in 1319.
luexico City northward, like the ribs of a fan, trails aUntk from the days of the Aztecs developed into “Caniino Reals (King Highways) of the Spaniards: one northeastward thru San Antonio* then to Nacogdoches and Natchitoches and on to Mobile and Pcn^ac ^ and to St. Augustine; one thru El Paso to Santa Fe and the i Mexico territory ; one thru Nogales and Tucson to the Arizona couaW* then westward thru Yuma to San Diego and California. Up the California coast is the Caniino Real of California song and story those twenty-one missions were built and their hospitality offered the wayfarers in that wild land.
era ZZllI tr"ih’ °r hiEh'v“5-“ others branched until till the Soulh-oxplorers. settlers	‘° rom“nco and Imcody of conquerors an
Part o£ the » .. T UU missionaries, adventurers and dreamers «N ’Played to w'* ^	empire	that	for	three	hundred	years %vere
>hut has tvoven "old tmi|3T^ ,°'d Slmni8h Tlail °f tudny i3 “Ttfe Southern llor.l ,,.1	.	ne"'	"'lly“	tojtethw	to	open	anew
Borderlands to the modern day explorer.