This winding, 100-mile trail from San Antonio to Kerrville was, during the 19th century, a strategic patrol road traveled by Texas Rangers to protect the surrounding area from hostile Indian attacks. During uneasy pioneer days, roads such as this, regularly scouted by Rangers, helped promote early white settlement by strengthening frontier defense. Because Bandera was located midway on the trail and because Bandera Pass, 10 miles north, frequently harbored Indian ambushers, the town became a focal point for Ranger activities along the road. Perhaps the best-known battle on the old route happened in Bandera Pass in the spring of 1841, when a company of 40 Texas Rangers under Capt. "Jack" Hays, on a scouting mission in the Guadalupe Mountains, was suddenly attacked in the narrow gorge by several hundred Comanches hidden in the brush and behind boulders. A bloody fight followed, much of it hand-to-hand combat with Bowie knives, but after their chief was slain, the Comanches withdrew and escaped. The Rangers and this trail thus helped remove the Indian menace and open the frontier across Texas.

Photo: Larry D. Moore

Bandera, Texas · USA