Shortly after establishing his colony along the Guadalupe River in 1825, Green Dewitt ordered a road built between his capital city of Gonzales and San Antonio. Byrd Lockhart surveyed the route and opened it in 1827. The eighty-mile road passed three watering holes and was used by settlers and Mexicans for travel and trade, though the presence of native groups in the area made travel dangerous. Oak trunks along the route were carved with mile markers. During the Texas War for Independence, Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, and Jim Bowie traveled this road, as did the Immortal 32 marching from Gonzales to the Alamo. Santa Anna also marched his army along it after the battle of the Alamo.