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A moment on the Texas Plains further back in time....

1757,1758 and 1831 to be exact....

A kind invite last month brung me to a lease near Menard TX, and while out there I found the San Saba Mission site....

Back in the 1750's while the French, Indians and English were contesting up in their neck of the woods, the Spanish were looking to pacify the wild Indians on the Tejas Frontier by expanding upon their mission system, looking to plant one way out there on the San Saba, 150 miles WNW of San Antonio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Santa_Cruz_de_San_Sab%C3%A1

Generally trivialized as a footnote of history, this was no mean undertaking, with a total of 300 people taking up residence on-site. Established in April of '57, within the year a stone mission compound had been built, and a wooden fort some distance away to house a garrison. Less heralded; a lengthy acequia system for irrigation was also being dug.

The Indian response was also extraordinary, in March of '58 TWO THOUSAND Comanches, Tonkawas and Hasinai's showed up to torch the place. Casualties were actually light, just eight dead, but the mission was accomplished, the post was abandoned. The real extraordinary fact to my mind is two thousand Indian warriors in Texas at one time in one place. Many French-supplied weapons in the mix, surely there's a missing backstory here.

The mission was subject to a singularly poor reconstruction in the CCC era, hence the medieval-tooking tower, but this is how it looks today...



...back then...



...and the adjacent San Saba...



Now the Jim Bowie part, in 1831 Bowie (AKA "BOUIE") or somebody in his party carved his name in the gateway. Most of the original stones are long gone, a great many hauled off for use in the walls of the Menard Pioneer Cemetery, but the carved gateway stone remains...







[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/frontierfolk/sansaba5.jpg[/img]

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