The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, July 1933 - April, 1934 Page: 135

Opening Routes Across West Texas, 1848-1850

Upon his return Bryan followed the same road to the San Cristoval
Crossing and then a more westerly course to San Antonio. The
outward journey was 101 miles and the return about twenty miles
shorter. Bryan believed that with a few days' labor this road could
be made practicable."
The exploring activities of government officers and engineers
during the three years following the close of the Mexican War did
a great deal toward opening up the western part of the state to
greater trade and settlement. Michler's route across northern
Texas, extending from Fort Washita some 500 miles to the south-
west, connected the frontier settlements of Arkansas with El Paso.
The new practicable route between San Antonio and Presidio del
Norte opened by Hays and the upper and lower routes, connecting
Austin and El Paso and San Antonio and El Paso, opened by
Neighbors and Ford and Smith and Whiting, respectively, diverted
a small portion of the Missouri-Santa F6-Chihuahua trade to Texas.
The military reconnaissances across the central portion of the
state, between Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande and Coffee's Bend
near the mouth of the False Washita, and the examinations in the
southwest, between Corpus Christi and Fort Inge and between San
Antonio and Ringgold Barracks and Fort Merrell, added materially
to the knowledge of those sections of country.
During the same period the Rio Grande was surveyed from
Ringgold Barracks northward to a point eighty miles above the
Pecos; the Sacramento Mountains above El Paso were explored
and found practicable for the passage of wagon trains. These
governmental activities proved a great boon to the settler, the
merchant, the immigrant, and the soldier, and paved the way for
the future development of the western part of the state.
0"Bryan to Johnston, December 23, 1850. MS., L. R., C. T. E.

135