The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House will host the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association’s annual membership and board meeting from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, at Cole Art Center.
Nacogdoches County Judge Mike Perry and Carl Watson, executive director of the Nacogdoches Convention and Visitors Bureau, will welcome attendees.
Presentations will focus on archaeological research on the trail in East Texas and Louisiana, and the National Park Service will provide an update on the trail. Other activities include a networking luncheon with association representatives and agency officials from the NPS and Texas Historical Commission and a tour of trail sites between Nacogdoches and Geneva, Texas. The tour will include a rare opportunity to visit association property that was purchased with donor support in 2014 and which represents the largest concentration of remnants of the physical road anywhere on the trail, according to a press release from the association.
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association is an advocacy group that seeks to protect the historic integrity of the trail, educate the public about its significance, and promote resource development, interpretation and tourism along its path, according to the association.
Added to the National Trails System by the U.S. Congress in 2004, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail commemorates nationally significant historic routes extending from the United States-Mexico border at the Rio Grande to the eastern boundary of the Spanish province of Texas in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Among the included trail sites are the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, the Alamo, Mission Tejas State Park, Caddo Mounds State Historic Site and The Old Stone Fort on the SFA campus.
