Puerto de Baluartes (Haven of the Strong Points)

Duane's take

The official marker's the word on this one, and here's how I tell it. Picture a pass between two hills — right here where Menard sits today — and picture the Spanish Crown trying to figure out what to do about the Apaches. The Viceroy of New Spain had an assignment that needed doin', and he wasn't sending just anybody.

He was sending his second explorer on the job: Don Pedro de Rabago y Teran. Now, being the second man sent tells you something. Someone came before him and, well, here we are talking about the second one.

Don Pedro rode into this pass between the hills in 1754, sized it up, and made a decision. The land could be fortified. The land could be farmed.

And right here — right in this very gap — he chose the site for an important Spanish mission to the Apaches. Three years passed. Then, in 1757, they built it.

A mission rising up out of a hill-country pass, in a place the Spanish called Puerto de Baluartes — Haven of the Strong Points. That name alone tells you they knew what they were lookin' at: a place worth holding onto. And whether the mission held or the hills did, this pass has been holdin' its ground a good while longer than either.

What the marker says

In this pass between the hills--location of present day Menard--a site for an important Spanish mission to the Apaches was chosen in 1754 by Don Pedro de Rabago y Teran, second explorer sent on the assignment by the viceroy of New Spain. Suitable to be fortified and farmed, this pass had its mission built in 1757.