THE LEGEND OF THE SAN SABA OR BOWIE MINE

By J. Frank Dobie

I

The epic legend of Texas is the legend of the San Saba, or Bowie, Mine. In Spanish chronicles it is known as La Mina de Los Almagres, or simply Los Almagres; also as Las Amarillas; sometimes as La Mina de las Iguanas, or Lizard Mine, from the fact that the ore was said to be found in chunks called iguanas (lizards). Almagre means red earth.

It is true that Miranda was ordered to take thirty mule loads of ore to Mexico to be carefully assayed. According to some traditions, all the ore of Texas mines was transported to Mexico to be smelted; on the other hand, the ruins of sundry smelters have been reported by hunters for the mines. The point is that a great many legends about “seventeen,” “thirty,” or “forty jack loads” of buried bullion may have been derived from the actual transportation of a pack train of crude ore.

II

I shall now briefly sketch Colonel Bowie’s connection with the mine that bears his name. My information is based somewhat on Hunter’s pamphlet, but I have heard the legend in a dozen different forms and shall attempt nothing more than an amalgamation.

“In the first place,” says West Burton of Austin, a most persistent seeker for the mine, “never be fooled into thinking that there is any such thing as the Bowie Mine. You can follow a lead if you hit it and locate any mine, but there is not any lead to the so-called Bowie Mine. That wasn’t a mine at all, but a storage for bullion taken from the San Saba or Los Almagres mines proper. Remember that the Spanish fort on the San Saba was destroyed three times and that the Indians were on the warpath constantly. Under such conditions, a strong and secure place had to be found for storing the bullion as it was smelted out. That place was somewhere on the Llano. In it were stored five hundred jack loads of silver bullion when the Indians ran the Spanish out the last time and destroyed the mines. It was that storage that the Lipans showed to Bowie and that he tried to get.”

Over the Llano region roamed and ruled a band of Lipans. Their chief was named Xolic, and for a long time he was in the habit of leading his people down to San Antonio every year to trade off some of the bullion they had captured from the Spaniards. They never took much at a time, for their wants were simple. The Spaniards and Mexicans in San Antonio thought that the ore had been chipped off some rich vein; there was a little gold in it. Of course they tried to learn the source of such wealth, but the Indians had a tribal understanding that whoever should reveal the place of the mineral should be bound and tortured to death. No Lipan broke his agreement. At length the people of San Antonio grew accustomed to the silver-bearing Lipans and ceased to try to enter their secret. Then came the curious Americans.

Bowie laid his plans carefully. He at once began to cultivate the friendship of the Lipans. He sent back East for a fine rifle plated with silver. When it came he presented it to old Chief Xolic. A powwow was held and Bowie was invited to join the tribe. Formally, by the San Pedro Springs, he was adopted into it. Now followed months of life with the savages. Bowie was expert at shooting the buffalo; he was foremost in fighting against the enemies of the Lipans; some say that he married the chief’s daughter. He became so thoroughly a Lipan and was so useful a warrior that his adopted brothers finally showed him the source of their precious mineral. He had expected much but he had hardly expected to see millions. The sight seemed to overthrow all caution and judgment. Almost immediately he deserted the Indians and returned to San Antonio to raise a force for seizing the treasure.

He was between two fires. He did not want too large a body of men to share with; he must have a considerable body to force the Indians. He took some time in arranging the campaign. Meanwhile old Chief Xolic died, and a young warrior named Tresmanos succeeded to his position. Soon afterwards he came with his people to San Antonio on their annual bartering trip. There he saw Bowie, accused him of treachery, and came near being killed for his insolence. The time was at hand for Bowie to start on his campaign. Thirty-four men had promised to accompany him. In actuality, only ten put in their appearance, among whom were his brother Rezin P. Bowie and a negro slave. The fewness of numbers, however, did not deter him. He was determined to reach the site of the mineral—whether smelted bullion or natural veins of crude ore legend does not agree—and to establish a stockade there and proceed with exploitation.

Some distance north of San Antonio in the hills he met a friendly band of Indians who warned him that Tresmanos was on the warpath against him and his rumored invasion. Bowie pressed on. November 21, 1831, near Calf Creek, in what is now McCulloch County, the little party was attacked at sunrise by 164 Indians. The Texans had one man killed and two wounded and all their horses lost; the Indians, according to their own subsequent report, had eighty men killed besides a great number wounded. In 1905, Hunter described the remains of the barricade hastily constructed by the Bowie party as being “still traceable,” and added that the barricade “would be almost intact but for the hand of the impious treasure seeker.”

Thus we see that, in fact, Bowie had nothing more to do with the mine than to hunt it. But because he was its greatest hunter and because he is presumed to have found it, his name has come to be linked with it. However, this linking is of a comparatively recent time. I doubt if the name “Bowie Mine” was used at all until after the Civil War. All the earlier histories and books of travel that mention the mines—and they are many—refer to them as the San Saba Mines. “Bowie Mine” is a popular coinage of the last half century, and now the legend of the mine is living to no small extent by virtue of the legend of the man.

III

Some of the early Texas writers credulous of mineral deposits in the state have had an immense influence on hunters for the San Saba Mines, who are often readers of old and out of the way books. These hunters argue that as the early writers were nearer the sources of history than their skeptical successors, they must be more reliable.

“The poor, credulous tramp prospector has not been alone led off by the lure of the Lost Mine.… Ben F. Gooch, a one-time wealthy stockman at Mason, was so sure that he had found the Bowie Mine that he spent $1500 sinking a shaft that is yet pointed out as ‘Gooch’s Folly.’ A judge of the Supreme Court spent $500 in another hole near Menard. W. T. Burnum invested $1500 in machinery with which he pumped out a cave on the divide north of the old mission. Failing to find the coveted mine at this place, he moved the machinery and pumped out a small artificial lake just above the town of Menard.… The Spanish had created this lake for a purpose.… The Almagres Mine entrance was at the bottom of the lake, which had been flooded by the Spaniards at the last moment.”