EAGLE PASS

Eagle Pass is located on the banks of the Rio Grande River across from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico and is approximately 140 miles southwest of San Antonio and 260 miles north of Monterrey, Mexico.

The Camino Real (Old San Antonio Road), a network of trails used by explorers, military and merchants during the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, crossed the Rio Grande River at Guerrero, Coahuila approximately 35 miles southeast of present day Eagle Pass. This route served as the primary artery for trade between San Antonio and Mexico prior to the Mexican War.

Trade relations between Texas and Mexico deteriorated in the years leading to the Mexican War and legal trade between the two countries was banned. Clandestine trade continued and a company of the Texas Militia under the command of Captain John A. Veatch was forced to establish a camp opposite of the mouth of the Rio Escondido near an old smuggler’s crossing named El Paso de Aguila de Escondido. At the end of the Mexican War the camp was abandoned.

Fort Duncan (1849)

In 1849 Fort Duncan was established two miles upstream from the Rio Grande crossing known as El Paso del Águila (named after the Mexican eagles that lived in the area). The fort was soon abandoned by the military but remained a crossing point for trappers, frontiersmen, and traders.

A settlement developed near the crossing below the post. In 1850 San Antonio merchant James Campbell opened a trading post and was soon joined by William Leslie Cazneau and his bride, Jane Cazneau. The village, named after the crossing on the Rio Grande, changed from El Paso del Águila to Eagle Pass as the Anglo presence grew.

As Eagle Pass developed below the fort, emigrants bound for the California gold fields (via Mazatlán) established a staging area above the post known as the California Camp. The resulting trade at the California camp shifted the population center from Eagle Pass and it's original crossing downstream to its present location above the fort.

John Twohig,owner of the land, surveyed out a townsite in 1851, which he named Eagle Pass. Friedrich W. C. Groos contracted to haul supplies for the military and brought some seventy Mexican families to settle near the fort. A stage line between Eagle Pass and San Antonio was also established in 1851 and Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church was constructed in 1852.

The early history of Eagle Pass was a violent one. The settlement and adjoining fort were frequently attacked by the Lipan Apache and Comanche Indians. Piedras Negras, established in 1850 across from Eagle Pass in Mexico, became a haven for fugitive slaves, and both banks of the river were home to many outlaws.

In 1855 James H. Callahan crossed into Mexico at Eagle Pass with three companies of volunteer rangers pursuing the Lipan and Kickapoo tribes. After a fight with Mexican forces on the Escondido, Callahan returned to Piedras Negras and set the village afire as he crossed back into Eagle Pass.

During the Civil War, a party of renegades crossed from Piedras Negras and overran the Confederate garrison at Fort Duncan. However, the townsmen, fighting from behind cotton bales, successfully drove off the renegade attack.

In June 1865, the Shelby Expedition, a force of Confederate soldiers who refused to surrender to Union troops after the Civil War retreated across Texas and made their way into Mexico. While crossing the Rio Grande near Fort Duncan, General Joseph Orville Shelby and his men ceremoniously buried a Confederate flag in the river.

In 1871 Maverick County was established and Eagle Pass was named the county seat. During the remainder of the 1800s several schools and churches were opened, the mercantile and ranching industries grew, a railway was established and Eagle Pass grew to a town of approximately 2,000.



This is a work in progress. Bookmark this page and come back often. If you have old photographs or family history relating to the Fort Duncan area, please email me a copy and I'll include your photos on this webpage.
Thanks

Leonard Kubiak



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