El Camino Real was a great thoroughfare of early Texas, following ancient Indian and buffalo paths and sometimes the same course as the 1691 Trail of the Padres, stretching 1,000 miles from Saltillo, Mexico, to present Louisiana. It served as a highway for explorers, traders, smugglers, adventurers, settlers, and armies, was surveyed about 1800, and was given the name King's Highway. In this area, as in some others, the modern highway follows the historic route, which here also marked the boundary between the major early 19th century colonies of Stephen F. Austin and Sterling C. Robertson.