The Presidio de San Luis de las Amarillas, better known locally as Presidio de San Saba, a historic Spanish fort on the grounds of the Menard Country Club northwest of Menard.
The Presidio was built in 1757 to try and pacify this wild area of Texas along the San Saba River, which was seeing an influx of Plains Indians (Comanches and Wichitas) moving into Texas from there usual territories. The Spanish government decided that using a mission to do outreach and Christianization and civilization of local Indian tribes would be better than using brute military force, but a presidio still needed to protect the mission. This Presidio was built to protect the nearby mission to San Saba, which lasted less than year and a half before it was destroyed 9 Indian attack. The mission was vacated but the Presidio remained, a show of Spanish dominion over this part of their vast New Spain holdings.
The Presidio was abandoned in 1772, after a Spanish government agent studied the Spanish missions on the frontier and concluded that they were a waste of money and resources should be redirected toward protecting more important Spanish settlements near San Antonio.
The Presidio fell into ruin. When Anglo settlers arrived in the 1860s the old Presidio stones were an attractive building material. Local legend holds that stones from this Presidio reused to build the first Menard County Courthouse and the first Menard County jail, then when those structures were razed in the 1930s, the stones were reused to build the cemetery wall around Pioneer Rest Cemetery southwest of the city.
In 1936, as part of the Texas Centennial celebration, the state decided to restore and rebuild parts of this historic fort in an effort to invest in the state's history during this important commemorative year. Unfortunately, the idea of what "restoration" of a historic structure meant in 1936 and what it means today is somewhat different. This is why the Presidio's 1936 renovations Arst almost certainly completely historically inaccurate.
Nevertheless, the work that was done here did identify and stabilize this historic site, which in the last few years (starting in 2010) is getting another look. This time modern archaeological excavations and interpretive techniques are trying to tell the story of what really happened here, and make educated guesses about what the old Presidio really looked like.
From the Texas Forts Trail website: (
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"A RUIN TWICE OVER
Presidio San Saba, once known as Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas, a fortress constructed in 1757 and designed to protect Spanish interests in the region, including nearby Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba. The Mission never survived long enough to benefit from the Presidio’s proximity (and firearms), burning to the ground during a raid by a band of neighboring tribes only a year after it was established. The Presidio only lasted another decade and a half, abandoned by decree of the Viceroy of New Spain in 1772. Over one hundred and fifty years later, the 1936 Texas Centennial Commission contracted the reconstruction of the Presidio in an effort to recapture the region’s past, and the northwest portion of the Presidio rose once again.
Today, Menard is helping to preserve and interpret the archeological remains that surround this community. Travelers may observe the ruins of the Presidio reconstruction where archeologists have spent several years uncovering artifacts pertaining to the site and the Spanish Colonial period in Texas. Interpreters are on-hand to answer questions and guide visitors. The site sits on almost 18 acres along the San Saba River where the native landscape has been restored and picnic tables and a pavilion are inviting respite for family gatherings.
Watch the video below to learn more about Spanish Settlement of Texas. This video was produced for inclusion in the Hispanic Texans mobile tour, more information about which may be found on our Hispanic heritage page at the following link: (
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And from the Handbook of Texas online: (
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"SAN LUIS DE LAS AMARILLAS PRESIDIO. Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas (popularly known as San Sabá Presidio), one mile from Menard on the north bank of the San Saba River, was established in April 1757 as a support for the Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission to the eastern (Lipan) Apaches. The presidio and its accompanying mission were the first place that Europeans in Texas came into conflict with the Comanche Indians and found that Plains Indians, mounted on Spanish horses and armed with French guns, constituted a fighting force superior to that of the Spanish colonials. The Indian menace eventually led to the Spanish withdrawal from Texas and the establishment of the new line of defense along the Rio Grande.
Raids on San Antonio and other Spanish settlements by eastern Indian tribes, including the Apaches and their allies, convinced Spanish authorities of the need to establish a mission and presidio for the Indians. Pedro de Rábago y Terán, commander of the San Xavier Presidio, was sent to explore the San Saba River country in 1754 to look for suitable locations for a presidio-mission complex. After his return to San Xavier he urged removal of the San Xavier complex to the San Saba River. The mission was moved temporarily to the San Marcos River near San Antonio and Rábago died soon afterward.
Diego Ortiz Parrilla, named to succeed Rábago y Terán, received instructions on September 1, 1756, to transfer the San Xavier garrison to the San Saba River and to recruit an additional fifty men in San Antonio and the Mexican provinces. The San Sabá presidio thus became the largest in Texas. While a jurisdictional question was being debated over whether the mission lay within the boundaries of Texas or Coahuila, the new post remained under the viceroy. The matter was finally settled in favor of Texas.
The mission to the Apaches on the San Saba River was personally funded and supported by Pedro Romero de Terreros, whose cousin, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, was put in charge. The presidio, which was to protect the mission, was government funded. In April 1757 the missionaries destined for the mission under Giraldo de Terreros, mission president, arrived on the San Sabá site. Arguments occurred between Giraldo de Terreros and Ortiz Parrilla, with the commandant arguing for abandonment of the projected mission. The mission fathers prevailed, and building began on timber structures for the presidio and the mission, to be called Santa Cruz de San Sabá, in May 1757. The presidio, located on the north side of the river, was about four miles from the mission, which was on the south side.
In January and February of the following year small raids and theft of the presidial horse herd by northern Indians, enemies of the mission Apaches, gave warnings of an impending attack. Shelter at the presidio was offered to the missionaries and their staff, but it was refused. The attack by 2,000 Comanches and their allies came on March 16, 1758. Two priests and six other persons were killed, although about twenty-seven managed to escape to the presidio when Ortiz Parrilla sent a detail of men to the mission after dark. Ortiz Parrilla, with the garrison of the presidio, reduced from 100 men to approximately thirty, gathered the almost 300 civilians into the fort, but the Indians did not attack the presidio.
In the fall of 1759 Ortiz Parrilla led a large force into northern Texas to punish the northern tribes for the massacre. At the fortified Taovaya village on the Red River, near the site of present-day Spanish Fort, he was defeated. He maintained that the French were providing assistance to the Indians. He was forced to return to Mexico City, where he was relieved of his command; Capt. Manuel Rodríguez of San Juan Bautista took charge on the San Saba for almost a year.
By 1760 Rodríguez was replaced by the nephew of Pedro de Rábago y Terán, Felipe de Rábago y Terán, who had been absolved of charges made against him eight years earlier when he was commander at San Xavier. Rábago y Terán replaced the timber buildings with stone; a quadrangle fort with four corner bastions was built and a moat was dug. In 1761 he called the fort Real Presidio de San Sabá. He also explored west as far as the Pecos River, hoping to find a trail to New Mexico, and founded two new missions for the Apaches on the upper Nueces River.
During the years that followed, Comanches continually harassed the presidio and mission. Supply trains were cut off and livestock taken. The Marqués de Rubí's inspection of the presidio on July 27, 1767, found conditions deplorable, the worst in the provinces. Nevertheless, Rábago y Terán was refused permission to remove the presidio to the upper Nueces River near Mission San Lorenzo.
Nicolás de Lafora, Rubí's engineer, drew a plan of the presidio. Rubí recommended that the presidio either be abolished or moved to the Rio Grande, which he considered to be the actual frontier as part of a new defense line. Conditions became worse during 1768, with increasing Indian raids, food shortages, and a severe epidemic. Rábago y Terán, without permission, ordered the presidio abandoned early in June, and the entire garrison and their families moved to Mission San Lorenzo on the Nueces, where they arrived on June 22, 1768.
Rábago y Terán was severely reprimanded for the abandonment and for his failure to burn or raze the buildings, and he eventually was removed from command. Rábago y Terán, who was replaced by Capt. Manuel Antonio de Oca y Alemán on April 1, 1769, is believed to have died en route to Mexico City. Oca withdrew from the Nueces in June 1771, transferring the soldiers to various presidios in San Antonio and Coahuila to fill manpower shortages. It was not until 1772 that a royal decree officially abandoned the fort on the San Sabá River.
In the ensuing years there were visitors at the abandoned presidio, including Governor Juan de Ugalde of Coahuila in 1789 and Francisco Amangual in 1808. Some left their names scratched in the gate: Padilla 1810, Cos 1829, Bowie 1831, Moore 1840. Ferdinand von Roemer visited the site in 1847, and his description served as a guide for rebuilding part of the structure in 1936.
The modern road to the ruins of the presidio leaves Highway 29 west of Menard. Limited archeological reconnaissance and testing have been done at the site of the presidio. A. T. Jackson and A. M. Woolsey made a surface survey in 1934 and collected artifacts which are at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin.
In 1967 the State Building Commission with Dessamae Lorrain and Kathleen Gilmore performed limited testing. The artifacts are at Southern Methodist University. Jack Ivey in 1981 and Daniel Fox in 1983 did limited testing. Artifacts consist of aboriginal flint scrapers and projectile points, aboriginal pottery, Spanish colonial ceramics, gun flints, and metal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann–Jones, 1936–58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976). William E. Dunn, "The Apache Mission on the San Saba River: Its Founding and Failure," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 17 (April 1914). Kathleen Gilmore, A Documentary and Archaeological Investigation of Presidio de San Luis de las Amarillas and Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá (Austin: State Building Commission, 1967). Paul D. Nathan, trans., and Lesley Byrd Simpson, ed., The San Sabá Papers (San Francisco: Howell, 1959). Ernest Wallace and David M. Vigness, eds., Documents of Texas History (Austin: Steck, 1963). Robert S. Weddle, The San Sabá Mission (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964)."