San Saba Peak
Goldthwaite, Mills County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rising to an altitude of 1,712 feet, San Saba Peak is an oblong promontory with rimrock edges on the north and west sides. The Spanish governor of Texas, Don Juan Antonio Bustillo y Cevallos, named the ancient landmark in 1732. Tales of lost silver mines have centered on the surrounding area for centuries. Inhabited by early Indians, San Saba Peak has been a landmark for pioneers, surveyors, and cowboys; the site of battles between Indians and early settlers; a signpost on the Fort Phantom Hill supply road; a register for western travelers; and a setting for Easter services. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rising 1,712 feet with rimrock edges on its north and west, San Saba Peak was named in 1732 by Spanish governor Don Juan Antonio Bustillo y Cevallos. Long inhabited by Native peoples and wrapped in legends of lost silver mines, it later served pioneers, surveyors, and cowboys as a battle site, a landmark on the Fort Phantom Hill supply road, a register for travelers, and even a place for Easter services. Few landmarks carry so many chapters of Texas history on one summit.
Why it matters
A single hilltop marks the layered frontier — Spanish colonial naming, Native homelands, settler conflict, and westward travel converging in central Texas.
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Related people
- · Juan Antonio Bustillo y Cevallos
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Indian Signaling Grounds
San Saba, TX
From before European settlement into the 1870s, Comanches and other tribes used these heights—Five Mill Hill and nearby Chapel Hill—to relay messages across long distances by smoke and, at times, mirrors, using codes to confuse enemies. Tribes wintered at a main village near Sloan, with a burial ground on Chapel Hill. The inscription recalls settlers' tense encounters, the Comanches' skilled signal system, and later events including a German Emigration Company peace bought in 1847 and an 1850 U.S. treaty nearby.
Jackson Massacre
Goldthwaite, TX
On an October morning in 1858, settlers Moses and Lydia Jackson set out with four of their children and met a small party of Indians, possibly Comanches. The parents and two sons were killed at once; the middle children, Joshua and Rebecca, were carried off, abandoned after nearly two weeks, and walked two days before a party of settlers and Texas Rangers found them near Sweetwater. The family was buried where they fell, close to this spot.
Cedar Log Cabin Museum
San Saba, TX
This cedar log structure served more than a century ago as stables on the Charles Harris ranch along Cherokee Creek south of San Saba, built sturdy enough to keep horses from being stolen in the raiding days of the Texas frontier. Preserved as the Cedar Log Cabin Museum, it was given in memory of Eula Gray Kuykendall by her husband and children. The building stands as a rare survivor of early ranch life in the county.
Old Methodist Campmeeting
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Established in August 1858 by settlers who came to worship carrying guns against possible Indian attack, this Methodist campmeeting saw the preacher hang his rifle in a tree within reach while guards watched the congregation's horses. Held between the summer's work and the fall harvest, the annual gathering became a season of both spiritual revival and social life, with many marriages beginning in courtships struck up here. Families held their lots for generations, and the present tabernacle replaces the brush arbors settlers once rebuilt each year.