What is now Menard County was inhabited by Lipán Apaches in the 1700s. At their request, the Spanish built Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá and the Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas in 1757 for protection from Comanche raids. Built of log palisades, the mission and presidio were four miles apart on opposite sides of the San Saba River and linked by the acequia (SS35). The ruined walls of the outpost where the Spanish first encountered the Comanche now mark the edge of a golf course.
In March 1758, a Comanche-led force of two thousand mounted warriors armed with guns obtained in trade with the French attacked and destroyed the mission, killing two priests and six others. A quadrangular stone fort with a moat was built in 1761 and renamed Real Presidio de San Sabá. After years of harassment by the Comanche and other tribes, the fort was abandoned in 1768.
The ruins of the Spanish fort were used as stockades for nineteenth-century cattle drives and provided materials for local buildings. In 1937, a partial reconstruction of the fort’s northwestern section was financed through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Texas Centennial Commission, and further reconstruction of the footings of the original fortifications was undertaken under the auspices of the Texas Historical Commission in 2011. An interpretive display indicates that two large incised stones in the arched gateway are the only ones in their original locations.