Pegleg Crossing on the San Saba

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can carry it to you. Now, some places earn their names plain and simple. Others earn them the hard way.

And then there are places that seem to have been collecting stories since before anybody was around to write them down. Pegleg Crossing on the San Saba, out in Menard County, is that third kind. Picture the land first.

An hourglass-shaped pass through the hills, right where McDougal Creek comes in to meet the San Saba River. Nature pinched the geography just so, and for years, long, uncounted years, it was a favored Indian campground. A place where people stopped, rested, watered their horses, and moved on.

Then in 1732, it stepped into written history as the site of a Spanish-Apache battle. Just like that, the quiet campground had a war on its record. And after that?

Well, the place just kept drawing people. Adventurers came through. Mustang hunters.

Indian fighters. German settlers looking for a new life. Gold-seekers chasing something that may or may not have been waiting for them.

All of them passed through that hourglass notch in the hills. The name itself, Pegleg, is probably owed to landowner Wilhelm Harlen, who most likely named it for a one-legged land commissioner by the name of T. W.

Ward. A one-legged man lending his character to a crossing. There's a certain poetry in that.

Now, the crossing became a station on a stage line, which sounds respectable enough. But here's where the story picks up a head of steam. Just one mile to the west sat a place they called Robbers' Roost.

And Pegleg Crossing gained itself a genuine notoriety for the many hold-ups that occurred there. Many. Not one, not a handful; many.

Travelers rolling through in the stage had reason to keep their eyes open and their valuables close. Then the era shifted, as eras do, and Pegleg took on a new role: a crossing on the Great Western Cattle Trail. The outlaws and the gold-seekers gave way to drovers and longhorns, the whole grand rumble of a cattle drive funneling through that same hourglass pass.

One crossing. A Spanish-Apache battle in 1732. Stage robberies.

A cattle trail. A one-legged commissioner's name riding on through history. That little pinch in the hills between McDougal Creek and the San Saba has been earning its story for a long, long time.

What the marker 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.