The Pegleg Crossing on the San Saba River, at the mouth of MacDougal Creek twelve miles east of Menard in Menard County, was used almost continuously by the Spaniards from the time of the establishment of Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission in 1757 until the end of the colonial period. In 1849 William Henry Chase Whiting surveyed the ford as a part of a migration road to California. It served the army as a crossing, linking Fort McKavett with San Antonio both before and after the Civil War. From 1867 until 1888 the San Antonio-San Diego (Southern) Stage Line (see SAN ANTONIO-EL PASO MAIL) used the military road; the stage line had a relay station, called Pegleg Station, constructed on a hill overlooking the ford. The Western Trail likewise used the ford for cattle drives from south central Texas to northern ranges and railheads. When State Highway 29 from Mason to Menard was built, Pegleg Crossing was abandoned.
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James B. Gillett, Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1875 to 1881 (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1921; rpt., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976). J. Marvin Hunter, Trail Drivers of Texas (2 vols., San Antonio: Jackson Printing, 1920, 1923; 4th ed., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985). Menard News, July 23, 1964.
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Jimmy M. Skaggs,
“Pegleg Crossing,”
Handbook of Texas Online,
accessed May 17, 2022,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/pegleg-crossing.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Original Publication Date:
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1976
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Most Recent Revision Date:
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January 2, 2020
