Driving through Goliad — one of the oldest towns in Texas, grown up around the mission and fort.
As we drive south from the mission toward the fort, we pass through the town of Goliad itself, and it's worth a word, because this is one of the oldest towns in all of Texas. A settlement grew up here in the seventeen hundreds in the shelter of the mission and the presidio, and it's been lived in ever since. The name 'Goliad' itself is a little puzzle — it came along in the eighteen twenties, and it's often said to be an anagram, a rearranging of the letters, of the name Hidalgo — Father Miguel Hidalgo, the priest who first cried out for Mexican independence. Drop the silent H, shuffle the letters, and you get Goliad.
The old town square, off to the north, has a historic courthouse and its own dark stories, and the whole place wears its long history openly. But our road leads to the river and the fort, so keep rolling south — we're following the same path travelers have taken between these two landmarks for almost three hundred years.
Photo: Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0
