Mosley Ranch SkyCam Back to the sunset cam
Schematic plat of the ridge A hand-drawn style contour sketch of the ridge. The old road, El Camino Real de los Tejas, runs northeast to southwest across it toward Crockett and the Trinity River, with creeks draining off the slopes. Five homestead flats, lettered A through E, sit along the high ground. El Camino Real de los Tejas to Crockett to Paso Tomás and the Trinity A B C D E

The Ridge on the King's Highway

A history of the land under the Mosley Ranch SkyCam, west of Crockett in Houston County, Texas. Three centuries of road, grant, farm and ranch on one stretch of high ground.

Schematic sketch, not a survey. Positions are illustrative until measured. Tap a lettered flat to jump to its entry in the homestead log.

Where the camera stands

The windmill that carries our camera rises from a ridge west of Crockett, beside the old road. It follows the corridor of El Camino Real de los Tejas, the Spanish royal road that linked Mexico to the missions of East Texas and Louisiana.

For a hundred years before anyone settled Houston County, travel and trade moved along this road. Spanish missionaries and soldiers, Caddo and Bidai people, American colonists and cotton wagons all passed within sight of this ground. In 1915 the state hired surveyor V. N. Zively to trace the road on the ground, and in 1918 the Daughters of the American Revolution set pink granite markers along his line. Several still stand along the old road.

On the ridge itself you can still read four or five older households: flat pads cut into the slope, and in two places the remains of foundations. Nobody has put names to them yet. This page is where we are working that out, in public, one map at a time.

Three centuries on this road

  1. Before 1690

    Caddo country

    People had lived in this part of Texas for thousands of years. The Hasinai Caddo farmed the Neches valley to the east, and the Bidai lived along the Trinity to the west. Much of the later royal road followed their trails.

  2. 1690

    The first mission in East Texas

    Alonso de León's expedition founded Mission San Francisco de los Tejas near present-day Weches, in the northeast corner of what is now Houston County. It was abandoned in 1693.

  3. 1691

    The road gets its start

    Governor Domingo Terán de los Ríos led a second expedition to the missions. Historians count his route as the birth of El Camino Real de los Tejas, and his party drew the earliest known picture of a Native Texan community, a Caddo settlement, now held in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville.

  4. 1755

    Paso Tomás

    The road's crossing of the Trinity River, southwest of the ranch, was named for a Bidai leader the Spanish called Chief Tomás. The road from La Bahía (Goliad) joined here on the west bank.

  5. 1774

    Bucareli

    Settlers forced out of East Texas founded Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Bucareli at the Trinity crossing. It grew to more than forty houses and about 350 people before Comanche raids and a flood drove them east in 1779 to refound Nacogdoches.

  6. After 1790

    The road past the ridge

    The Camino was never one track. It was a braid of routes used at different times. The branch between Bastrop and Crockett, the one that passes this ranch, came into regular use only after 1790.

  7. 1821

    A ferry on the Trinity

    Joel Leakey started a ferry at Paso Tomás. It became Robbins's Ferry, then Clapp's Ferry, and ran until the first bridge went in during 1930.

  8. 1828

    Mexican land grants

    The Mexican government began granting land here to settlers of Joseph Vehlein's colony. Jacob Masters settled northeast of the future Crockett that year. These grants, measured in leagues and labors, are the bones of every property line in the county today.

  9. 1837

    Houston County and Crockett

    The Republic of Texas created Houston County, first of its new counties. Andrew Gossett donated land for a county seat and named it for David Crockett, who by local tradition camped near the site in January 1836 on his way to San Antonio. George Aldrich became the first county surveyor.

  10. 1840s–1860

    Cotton and slavery

    Planters from the Old South built a cotton economy along the rivers and the road. By 1860 the county held 8,058 people, 2,819 of them enslaved. Their labor cleared much of the land that later became small farms.

  11. 1865–1930

    Small farms fill the ridges

    After emancipation many families farmed on shares. The railroad arrived in 1872, and farm numbers rose from 75 in 1870 to 1,698 in 1880 and 5,656 in 1930. Most of that growth was small households on forty or eighty acres, the kind of homesite that leaves a flat pad on a ridge.

  12. 1905

    A government map of the farms

    The U.S. Bureau of Soils surveyed Houston County, published in 1906. Soil maps of this period plotted roads and rural buildings, which makes this the earliest map likely to show individual houses on the ridge.

  13. 1915–1918

    Surveying the King's Highway

    Zively walked and mapped the road in 1915 and 1916. The DAR set granite markers along his line.

  14. 1930–1940

    The farms empty out

    Drought, the boll weevil and the Depression broke the small cotton farm. The county lost more than 1,500 farms between 1930 and 1940. Houses were moved, burned or left to fall, and pastures grew over the yards. This is the most likely decade for many of the ridge homesteads to go quiet.

  15. 1936

    Every house on one map

    The State Highway Department's county map, revised in 1940, marked outlying buildings, schools, churches and cemeteries across the county. It is the best single snapshot of who still lived along the road.

  16. 2004

    A national historic trail

    Congress designated El Camino Real de los Tejas a National Historic Trail. The old road is its spine through Houston County.

  17. Now

    A camera on the windmill

    The same sky those travelers watched from the ridge, recorded every evening and posted as a nightly sunset clip.

The homestead log

Four or five house sites sit on the ridge. Each entry below will fill in as maps, aerial photos and deeds turn up evidence. Until a record names a family, we say so.

AHomestead A

On the ground
Level pad cut into the slope, foundation remnants
First on a map
Not yet found
Family
Unknown

BHomestead B

On the ground
Level pad, foundation remnants
First on a map
Not yet found
Family
Unknown

CHomestead C

On the ground
Level pad
First on a map
Not yet found
Family
Unknown

DHomestead D

On the ground
Level pad
First on a map
Not yet found
Family
Unknown

EHomestead E

On the ground
Possible pad, to be confirmed
First on a map
Not yet found
Family
Unknown

Know one of these places?

If your family lived west of Crockett, a photo, a deed or a story can put a name on one of these sites.

Share what you know

How we are dating the ridge

Every Texas property traces back to an original survey. Once we know which one, each older map becomes a page in the same story.

  1. Find the original surveyThe county appraisal record for the ranch lists an abstract number. The General Land Office Land Grant Database turns that number into the first grantee's name, the grant type, the file and the surveyor's sketch.
  2. Read the county land mapsGLO county maps from 1859, 1868 and 1877 show that survey's lines, the creeks and the roads of the day. They tell us who held the land and where the road ran.
  3. Look for houses on paperThe 1906 soil survey map and the 1936 highway department map both plotted rural buildings. A square on the ridge on either map dates a household.
  4. Check the aerial photographsFederal aerial surveys from the late 1930s onward show roofs, yards, fields and fence lines. Laid over today's imagery, they show which pads still had houses and when they went empty.
  5. Read the ground with lidarFree statewide lidar lets us strip away trees and see the bare ground: house pads, old road ruts, terraces and wells that are invisible from the air.
  6. Follow the deeds and the censusDeed records at the Houston County Clerk and the census and farm schedules name the owners and tenants who lived on the survey, household by household.

The map room

Where the oldest and most accurate maps of Houston County are kept, what each one shows, and what it can tell us about this ridge. Items marked shows buildings are the ones most likely to date the homesteads.

Spanish and Mexican Texas 1690 to 1836

  • Terán de los Ríos expedition drawing, 1691Archivo General de Indias, Seville (search the PARES portal)
    The earliest known drawing of a Native Texan community, a Caddo settlement east of here. Not a map of the ridge, but the first picture of the world the road was built to reach.
  • Atlas T, Titles to Frontier Settlers, 1834Texas General Land Office, Historical Volumes
    Mexican-era titles issued by Commissioner Carlos S. Taylor in the Nacogdoches frontier. If the ranch sits on a Mexican grant, its plat may be here.
  • Ramón de la Garza eleven leagues, Houston and Robertson districtsTexas General Land Office, General Map Collection
    One of the oldest sketches filed for Houston County. Shows how Mexican-era speculators blocked out the land west of Crockett.
  • John Durst's grant along the Trinity RiverTexas General Land Office, General Map Collection
    An early grant sketch on the county's river side. Useful for how the road and the Trinity crossing were drawn before the Republic.

Republic and early statehood 1836 to 1880

  • GLO Land Grant DatabaseTexas General Land Office
    Start here. Search Houston County by abstract number to get the original grantee, the grant type and the scanned file with the surveyor's field notes and sketch.
  • Houston County Field Notes VolumeTexas General Land Office
    Handwritten copies of field notes for Mexican titles and first- and second-class headrights in the Houston district. Surveyors' calls name trees, creeks and roads at each corner.
  • Houston County sketch files and rolled sketchesTexas General Land Office, 160 Houston County items, sorted oldest first
    The working drawings behind the county map. Sketch files often show a single survey in detail, sometimes with houses, fields or the road where the surveyor crossed it.
  • Republic County of Houston, 1837 to 1845 seriesGLO, Nancy and Jim Tiller Digital Collection (modern compilations)
    Six maps showing the county's shifting boundaries from its creation in 1837, when it still included today's Anderson and Trinity counties.
  • Houston County, C. C. Stremme, 1859Texas General Land Office; reproductions through TSHA's Legacy of Texas
    The earliest GLO county map we have located. Shows original surveys, Robbins's Ferry on the Trinity and the roads of the day, including roads leading out to the river.
  • Drawn by the architect of the Old Land Office Building. Adds later surveys and names Mustang, Lost and Wright's creeks, Randolph and Robbins's Ferry.
  • The post-railroad county map. Survey lines, creeks and Crockett as the settlement boom began. Compare with 1868 to see which surveys changed hands.
  • Free zoomable scans of GLO county maps. The fastest way to study the linework before ordering a high-resolution copy.

Railroad, cotton and the road survey 1880 to 1920

The twentieth-century countryside 1920 to 1960

  • General Highway Map, Houston County, 1936, revised 1940shows buildingsTexas State Highway Department; Texas State Archives (map 04896, later editions 5178, 5520, 5909)
    Two sheets at two miles to the inch marking outlying buildings, schools, churches and cemeteries. A copy on the Portal carries a hand-drawn line for the Old San Antonio Road.
  • Historical aerial photography, 1930s onwardshows buildingsTexas Geographic Information Office (TxGIO), free on the DataHub
    Frame-by-frame black-and-white aerial photos from federal and state flights, digitized for every county. The first true picture of the ridge from above.
  • USGS historical topographic mapsshows buildingsU.S. Geological Survey topoView, free download
    Every edition of the local quadrangles. Contour lines prove the ridge's height, and older editions mark rural houses as small black squares.

Reading the ground today free and current

People and paper in Crockett and Austin

  • Houston County Clerk, deed recordsHouston County Courthouse, Crockett
    The chain of title from the original grant to today. Deeds and estate papers name the families who owned the ridge and often describe the houses they sold.
  • Houston County Museum and Historical CommissionThe 1909 Crockett Depot
    Local photographs, family files and people who remember the farms along the old road.
  • Texas State Library and Archives map collectionAustin
    Originals of the state's highway, soil and survey maps, plus the Zively road survey. Reproductions by request.

Further reading

  • Houston County, Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association.
  • Old San Antonio Road, Handbook of Texas Online.
  • Armistead Albert Aldrich, The History of Houston County, Texas (Naylor, 1943).
  • Houston County Historical Commission, History of Houston County, Texas, 1687–1979 (Heritage, 1979).
  • Gifford E. White, The First Settlers of Houston County, Texas (1983).
  • Albert Woldert, "The Location of the Tejas Indian Village (San Pedro) and the Spanish Missions in Houston County," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 38 (1935).
  • A. Joachim McGraw, John W. Clark Jr. and Elizabeth A. Robbins, eds., A Texas Legacy: The Old San Antonio Road and the Caminos Reales, 1691–1991 (Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation, 1991).

Help us name the homesteads

If your people farmed, worked or were buried west of Crockett, we would like to hear from you. Old photographs, deeds, letters and family stories all count. Nothing gets posted without your permission.

Email the ranch