Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was an officer on a Spanish expedition that landed around Tampa Bay in 1528.
Their searches for treasure led to hostile reception by the local Native Americans, and de Vaca was eventually marooned there.
He and others made their way west by small boats along the coast, and eventually reached Galveston Island, where he lived with the Karankawa tribe as a medicine man before continuing west overland: in 1536 he found a Spanish patrol in northern Mexico.
He returned home and wrote of his experiences.
Cabeza de Vaca, or "head of a cow", was a name said to have been given by the King of Spain to an ancestor of Álvar Núñez for his help in guiding the army through the mountains, enabling an attack on the Moors from the rear, defeating them.

In the 1930s, commemorative coins were not sold by the government—Congress, in authorizing legislation, usually designated an organization which had the exclusive right to purchase them at face value and vend them to the public at a premium.
In the case of the Old Spanish Trail half dollar, the responsible group was the El Paso Museum, acting through its chairman.

Lyman William Hoffecker (usually known as L.W. Hoffecker) was an El Paso, Texas coin dealer and an official of the American Numismatic Association (ANA).
In 1929, he organized the Gadsden Purchase Commission (consisting mostly of himself) to seek a commemorative coin issue for the 75th anniversary of the Gadsden Purchase.
A bill that would have authorized one passed both houses of Congress in 1930, but it was vetoed by President Herbert Hoover, who deemed commemorative coins abusive.
Undiscouraged by this, in 1935 Hoffecker made a second attempt for a commemorative coin issue he would control, for the Old Spanish Trail, becoming chairman of the El Paso Museum Coin Committee.
This time, he visited Washington and had discussions with several lawmakers, and was even granted a five-minute interview with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a talk Hoffecker said "that saved us".
Hoffecker later testified before Congress that he was asked to handle the arrangements of the Old Spanish Trail half dollar as the only coin collector in El Paso, something Q. David Bowers, in his volume on commemoratives, called a lie, as Hoffecker elsewhere in his correspondence refers to local collectors buying a few of the coins.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was an officer on a Spanish expedition that landed around Tampa Bay in 1528. Their searches for treasure led to hostile reception by the local Native Americans, and de Vaca was eventually marooned there. He and others made their way west by small boats along the coast, and eventually reached Galveston Island, where he lived with the Karankawa tribe as a medicine man before continuing west overland: in 1536 he found a Spanish patrol in northern Mexico. He returned home and wrote of his experiences. Cabeza de Vaca, or "head of a cow", was a name said to have been given by the King of Spain to an ancestor of Álvar Núñez for his help in guiding the army through the mountains, enabling an attack on the Moors from the rear, defeating them. 
In the 1930s, commemorative coins were not sold by the government—Congress, in authorizing legislation, usually designated an organization which had the exclusive right to purchase them at face value and vend them to the public at a premium. In the case of the Old Spanish Trail half dollar, the responsible group was the El Paso Museum, acting through its chairman.
Lyman William Hoffecker (usually known as L.W. Hoffecker) was an El Paso, Texas coin dealer and an official of the American Numismatic Association (ANA). In 1929, he organized the Gadsden Purchase Commission (consisting mostly of himself) to seek a commemorative coin issue for the 75th anniversary of the Gadsden Purchase. A bill that would have authorized one passed both houses of Congress in 1930, but it was vetoed by President Herbert Hoover, who deemed commemorative coins abusive. Undiscouraged by this, in 1935 Hoffecker made a second attempt for a commemorative coin issue he would control, for the Old Spanish Trail, becoming chairman of the El Paso Museum Coin Committee. This time, he visited Washington and had discussions with several lawmakers, and was even granted a five-minute interview with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a talk Hoffecker said "that saved us". Hoffecker later testified before Congress that he was asked to handle the arrangements of the Old Spanish Trail half dollar as the only coin collector in El Paso, something Q. David Bowers, in his volume on commemoratives, called a lie, as Hoffecker elsewhere in his correspondence refers to local collectors buying a few of the coins.
Old Spanish Trail half dollar