Presidio de San Saba
Treasure hunters have worked the country around this Spanish fort for two centuries looking for the Lost Bowie Mine. The reason they come is that sometime after 1895 a prankster carved the word "mine" into the gatepost, underneath Jim Bowie's name.
Search Area
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- Start point
- The gate at 191 Presidio Road
- Address
- 191 Presidio Rd, Menard, TX 76859
- Measured from
- The reconstructed main gate
- Parking
- On site, free, unpaved
- Site walk
- About 30 minutes
- Nearest town
- Menard, TX
The zone drawn here is the San Saba valley around Menard, which is the country searchers have covered. It is a general search zone and not an exact site, and almost all of it is working ranchland in private hands.
The Legend
Spain built the presidio of San Luis de las Amarillas on the San Saba River in 1757, partly to protect a new mission and partly to look into persistent rumors of silver in the hill country. On March 16, 1758, a coalition of Wichita, Comanche, and Caddoan warriors burned Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba a short way downstream and killed two priests. It is the only Spanish mission in Texas destroyed by a Native attack.
The silver was never found. The Spanish looked, wrote down that they had looked, and the failure is in the colonial record.
How Bowie got attached to it
The Texas State Historical Association traces the legend to the Los Almagres mine, and notes that the ore body behind the story lay far to the east, nowhere near the presidio. What connected Jim Bowie to this particular fort was graffiti. Bowie and his brother Rezin carved their names on the gatepost, as travelers did. Sometime after 1895 somebody else carved the word "mine" underneath, and treasure literature has been building on that ever since.
Bowie died at the Alamo in 1836. The mine has never been found by anybody, and people are still looking.
What archaeologists found instead
The lost mission site turned up in an alfalfa field east of Menard in 1993, and the excavation recovered a brass sundial dated 1580, musket balls, horse bridles, and religious medallions. Texas Tech University and the Texas Archeological Society worked the presidio itself from 2000 to 2007 and published on the southeast bastion and the ceramics.
Most of the 1936 WPA reconstruction had fallen down by the 2000s. The main gate and walls standing today were rebuilt in 2011 to a more accurate interpretation, with the fort's footprint laid out in stone.
What May Be Out There
Two and a half centuries of looking in this valley have produced Spanish colonial paperwork, a reconstructed fort, and no silver.
- A silver deposit the Spanish crown believed lay somewhere near the San Saba, which is part of why the presidio was garrisoned at all.
- The workings Jim Bowie is said to have reached in 1831 and never described to anyone in usable detail.
- Ore samples Bowie reportedly carried back to San Antonio, which no longer exist to be assayed.
- Recovered so far: nothing. No shaft, no adit, and no assayable ore has come out of the San Saba country.
The Evidence
Documented record
- The presidio of San Luis de las Amarillas, garrisoned in 1757 in part to evaluate reports of silver in the region.
- Spanish colonial correspondence recording that the search was made and that it failed.
- Los Almagres, a real workings roughly 70 miles east near the Llano, which is where the original ore reports came from.
- The Bowie brothers' names carved into the presidio gatepost, which is genuine period graffiti.
- The 1993 rediscovery of the mission site east of Menard, and the Texas Tech excavations of the presidio from 2000 to 2007.
Legend and hearsay
- The word "mine" carved beneath Bowie's name by an unknown hand sometime after 1895.
- The claim that Bowie worked a rich shaft near the fort in 1831 and kept its location to himself.
- The lost San Saba mine as one findable place, rather than as a name that has drifted across three counties for 200 years.
- Maps sold to searchers through the 20th century, none of which has led to a working.
Known Clues
The gatepost. The Texas State Historical Association traces the modern legend to the carving itself. Travelers cut their names into the ruin routinely, and the Bowies did. Somebody later added a single word underneath, and that word is why people still arrive with shovels. It is the clearest case on this site of a clue that was manufactured rather than found.
Los Almagres. There was a real silver mine in the region and the Spanish did work it. It sits well east of here, near the Llano River, far enough that the ore reports it generated cannot describe anything in the San Saba valley. The legend moved the mine; the geology did not.
The Calf Creek fight. Bowie's documented San Saba trip in November 1831 ended in a battle, not a mine. His party of 11 was attacked near the ruined mission by a much larger force and held them off for over a day. That fight is recorded in detail by men who were in it. The mine attached to the same journey is recorded by nobody.
Visiting Information
Open daily, self-guided, with no admission charge and no staff on site. Daylight is the practical window, since there is no lighting. There are interpretive panels, a stone outline of the original footprint, and a covered picnic area.
Menard is a long way from anywhere, so fuel and water before setting out. There is no visitor center and no place to buy anything at the site.
The mission site east of town, which is where the 1993 excavation happened, is on private land and is not part of the visit. The gatepost carving is the thing most people come to see, so it is worth knowing before arriving that the walls around it are a modern reconstruction rather than 18th century stonework.
Reality Check
The silver hunt was real. Spain sent people to look, wrote down that they had looked, and recorded that they found nothing, and that paperwork survives. What does not survive scrutiny is the mine attached to this particular fort. The ore body that started the story lies about 70 miles east, the connection to Jim Bowie rests on a word somebody chiseled into a gatepost more than half a century after he died, and no shaft, tunnel, or assayable sample has ever been produced from the valley. This is a real place carrying a treasure that was, on the available evidence, invented on site with a chisel.
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