Pegleg Crossing on the San Saba

The Handbook of Texas says the Spaniards used the Pegleg Crossing almost continuously from the founding of Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission in 1757 to the end of the colonial period. In 1849 William Henry Chase Whiting surveyed the ford for a migration road to California, and the army used it to link Fort McKavett with San Antonio before and after the Civil War. From 1867 to 1888 a stage line kept a relay station, Pegleg Station, on a hill above the ford. The crossing was abandoned when State Highway 29 was built from Mason to Menard.

What the plaque says

An hourglass-shaped pass through the hills where McDougal Creek joins San Saba River. For years a favored Indian campground, it entered written history, 1732, as site of Spanish-Apache battle. Saw passage of adventurers, mustang hunters, Indian fighters, German settlers, gold-seekers. Probably named by landowner Wilhelm Harlen for one-legged land commissioner T.W. Ward. Crossing became station on stage line. Gained notoriety for many hold-ups that occurred at "Robbers' Roost" (1 mile west). Pegleg served in later era as crossing on Great Western Cattle Trail. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Presidio de San Saba — 13 mi
  The ruins of the largest Spanish presidio in Texas, built in 1757 to guard a mission to the Lipan Apache, where the Comanche and their allies first turned back Spain's frontier.

More markers nearby

• Site of Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba — 8.7 mi
• Puerto de Baluartes (Haven of the Strong Points) — 11 mi
• Fort McKavett, C.S.A. — 11 mi
• Pioneer Rest Cemetery — 12 mi