Packsaddle Mountain

The raiders, more than twenty-one and reputedly Apache (Nde), came down the South Llano River taking horses along Beaver Creek and in Legion Valley. Moss's party followed them for twenty-five miles and caught them on the mountaintop, where they had 300 or 400 pounds of beef laid out on the rocks. Three of the raiders were killed and four of the settlers wounded. Afterward the men rode to the John B. Duncan ranch, where Dr. C. C. Smith of Llano treated them. Descendants of the men placed a granite plaque at the battle site on August 5, 1938.

What the plaque says

Packsaddle Mountain Two and one half miles east on the Packsaddle Mountain, in a battle fought August 4, 1873, Captain J. R. Moss, Stephen B. Moss, William B. Moss, Eli Lloyd, Arch Martin, Pink Ayers, E. D. Harrington and Robert Brown routed a band of Indians thrice their number. The last Indian battle in this region.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 11 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 11 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Lake State Park — 12 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Llano County Courthouse Square — 13 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.

More markers nearby

• Early Explorers in Llano County — 1.3 mi
• Charles Haynes — 9.1 mi
• Granite Industry in Llano County — 9.9 mi
• C.S.A. Salt Works — 9.9 mi