These were not mere bodies oC adventurers, but expeditions worthy or the greatness ot the Snain or that period. Coronado's contact with the Indians was more merciful than De Soto’s. To the everlasting glory of tlie Florida natives they raced their mounted and armored oppressors and died deluding their homes. It required chains and bloodhounds and overpowering armament to enslave them.
San Antonio became the center Tor missions in 171S when the mission that became the historic Alamo was established there and San Antonio became the seat of the Diocese of San Antonio. The Franciscan Fathers planted a score of missions in Texas, at Goliad, Victoria, San Antonio, Nacogdoches, Menard, Uvalde and along tlie Rio Grande at El Paso del Norte. The old missions around San Antonio are revelations in art and architecture and, like all the old missions, they are more than remarkable for such a primitive and wilderness location.
Before the missions were begun around San Antonio others were building between Nogales and Tucson, Arizona—the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, founded in 1692, is claimed "more beautiful and interesting than any other in the country.” Nearby and older than San Xavier is the picturesque ruin of San Jose de Tu-macacori, now being reclaimed for preservation.
Much of the Old Spanish Trail in Arizona runs down the valley of the Salt and the Gila Rivers to tlie Yuma gateway into California. Through all tlie centuries the westward march of tlie Spaniard and of the Anglo-Saxon has flowed over this trail, peopling the California shores and crowning the land with a romance as eternal as that that lives along the Old Spanish Trail to Florida.
In Southern California are old missions again. On the Trail are San Diego, 1709; San Juan Capistrano, 1776; Los Angeles, 1771, and others "a day’s joinnej apart” on northward, a total of twenty-one.
At San Diego history and romance win the hearts of
the visitors, for San Diego stands as the beginning of
California. The first wooden cross was planted there
and the Indians were led to construct the first church
then San Diego came into being. The soil was taught U
serve—Indians, irrigation and seed, and the leaders.*
the nndres gave California the palm, the vine, the
olive, grain, foodstuff and grazing for the sheep caUle
and the needs of a comfortable communal hie.
original dam is still standing. A traveler may walk
1 mil tlie spot where was raised the first flag, m« y about the spo	adobe buildings;	may
rttrolU Sch were brought from Spain;1'may sit in the old enclosure of Ramonas mar
riago place and dream of other Alessandros and oilier Ramonas whose pictures, perhaps, they have seen in the Wishing Well.
Reminders of tlie Spanish are all along tlie Highway. In tlie west are tlie great works of the padres, the relics of the conquisladores and the fascinating legends and tales of those days. In tlie east are things that tell of the tragedies of knights and princes and peasants who passed golden opportunities by for the lure of phantom gold further, ever further, on. And there, too, are the tales of great Indian nations whose resistance sited glory on their name and laid the proud standards of Spain in the shambles tlie conquerors created.
The glory of the explorer has dimmed with time, but the labor of the priests and their old missions still speak of the past and the Old Spanish Trail now makes appeal that it may revive the story of the old Spanish days when this world was a wilderness and men braved the unknown to solve its secrets.
On (be Trail around New Iberia in Louisiana is the land of Evangeline and of Longfellow’s immortal poem. Among the moss-draped old live oak trees and cypresses and the storied bayous a thousand scenes speak of the Acadian maiden.
Now Orleans is tlie Paris of America. In the hands of the French it became the key to the central empire ol’ the Mississippi and split the Spanish dominions into an eastern and a western land. But it, too, had its Spanish period. The old Cabihlo is still there to tell its story of Spanish days. There is hardly any really old history where New Orleans and tlie Mississippi River do not appear with romantic influence.
Along (be southern border of the State of Mississippi the blue waters of the Gulf sing their love song. Then comes Biloxi, the first settlement in old Louisiana; then Mobile, founded by the French in 1702, but the Spanish influence antedated this. Mauvila, the fortified Indian city where Do Soto and his cavaliers sank in blood and misery, gives Mobile its name. In Mobile, too, the Old Spanish Trail of today was fashioned for the pleasure of the people of the land.
Through Florida are Pensacola, its great bay the seat of ancient Spanish effort; Tallahassee, ancient center or a proud Indian nation; the Smvanee River, and then Jacksonville; St. Augustine, the Ever-Failhful City; and Tampa Bay, the first gateway into Florida. Florida was Spanish until 1819. At the time of the American Revolution Spain held the dominion known as the Louisiana Purchase and all that land known as the Spanish Southwest, and also tlie Floridas.
192-1
The Highway
of-the- Southern Borderlands