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Prologue FORT WORTH was planted on a river whose prodigious wealth had been recorded in history since the beginning of the sixteenth century; and like the Biblical tree planted by the rivers of water, would flourish and its leaves would not wither. Rio de la Santisima Trinidad, together with the empire of prairies which roll and swell from its wooded banks, has always drawn men to delight in its life-giving abundance. The Trinity suggests a shining target of preoccupation, drawing generations of Spaniards and Americans to press into the mystery that shrouded it. For the Spaniards, the mystery faded into Indian villages and buffalo hides. For American pioneers, the mystery blossomed into homes and wealth. History broke over the Trinity in 1519. Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, Spanish explorer from Jamaica, was the fIrst European to sail and map the Gulf coast of North America from Florida to Vera Cruz, Mexico. He was searching for a strait which would lead westward through North America to the Orient. Pineda did not fmd a strait; instead, he discovered the outline of the coastlands of the Gulf of Mexico and the rivers of Rio Grande, Trinity, and Mississippi. He did not name the Trinity, but drew it on the official map of his exploration for His Majesty, the King of Spain. Prologue FORT WORTH was planted on a river whose prodigious wealth had been recorded in history since the beginning of the sixteenth century; and like the Biblical tree planted by the rivers of water, would flourish and its leaves would not wither. Rio de la Santisima Trinidad, together with the empire of prairies which roll and swell from its wooded banks, has always drawn men to delight in its life-giving abundance. The Trinity suggests a shining target of preoccupation, drawing generations of Spaniards and Americans to press into the mystery that shrouded it. For the Spaniards, the mystery faded into Indian villages and buffalo hides. For American pioneers, the mystery blossomed into homes and wealth. History broke over the Trinity in 1519. Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, Spanish explorer from Jamaica, was the fIrst European to sail and map the Gulf coast of North America from Florida to Vera Cruz, Mexico. He was searching for a strait which would lead westward through North America to the Orient. Pineda did not fmd a strait; instead, he discovered the outline of the coastlands of the Gulf of Mexico and the rivers of Rio Grande, Trinity, and Mississippi. He did not name the Trinity, but drew it on the official map of his exploration for His Majesty, the King of Spain. Xll PROLOGUE Since that day a cavalcade of men has ascended and crisscrossed the Trinity and valley. From the time of its exploration by the helmeted Spaniards in the 1540s, to the coming of the spur-booted frontiersmen of the Texas Republic and the United States Dragoons, the beauty and wonderful fertility of the valley impressed these men. Each in his turn recorded this in his official journal to his government, as related by Don Jose Antonio Pichardo, a Mexican professor recognized by the Spanish government as the foremost authority of the geography and history of North America in the nineteenth century. Pichardo submitted a survey of the history of the Louisiana-Texas boundary dispute between Spain and France to his country in 1812, in which he included descriptions of the Trinity from the journals of the Spanish explorers: Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, 1541; Luis de Moscoso, 1542; Alonso de LeOn, 1690; Domingo de Teran, 1691; Domingo Ramon, 1716; Marques de San Miguel de Aguayo, 1721; Don Diego Ortiz Parrilla, 1759; Athanase de Mezieres, 1778; and Jose Mares, 1787. Posterity of Tarrant County is indebted especially to one of these men -de Mezieres. His official reports of the land, and of the Indians of the upper Trinity and Brazos valleys north to the Red River, fill a onevolume book, and are the fIrst account of this area in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Father Juan Agustin de Morfi, before his death in 1783, wrote a monumental history of Texas, Historia de la Provincia de Texas, 16731779 , in which he described the Trinity. The dominant qualities of the river are captured in his description: The Rio de la Santisima Trinidad rises to the north of the pueblo of San Teodoro (whose territory it makes productive) in three springs, which unite into one very large stream, and forms a channel to receive the many...

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