Comanche Attack Spanish outpost, but the Alamo is safe
It will be 200 years before John Wayne and Hollywood show up in the Texas area to deal with the Comanche, but this Comanche "first nation" and other "first nations" such as the Wichita, have some history on 16 March 1758, the year we are covering during 2022.
Our Colonel George Washington has had Dysentery since before November 1757 and is just starting to come out from under this misery in March of 1758. But not quite yet. So we look around the globe again. And what do we find?
About 1500-2000 or more Comanche and Wichita attack
2 northern Spanish outposts -- a Mission and then the Presidio (a garrisoned fort) on 16 March 1758.
The Comanche and Wichita attack the Mission and Presidio on the San Saba because it appears to be a threat to their territory. A year later the Apache and Spanish do a revenge attack back. The revenge attack is not successful. That's the brief summary.
And this Presidio? What is a Presidio?
A lot of Spanish garrison forts were called Presidio.
And what is this Alamo doing here now?
We find it is built in 1744, the same year James Wood founded Winchester VA.
More on that later.
For now we look at this 16 March 1758 attack on the Mission and the Presidio on the San Saba.
It is a lopsided attack.
There aren't that many defenders in the Spanish Mission on the San Saba.
It was built to keep the Apache as allies.
The Presidio, 3 to 4 miles away, guarded the Spanish Mines. That's where the Spanish soldiers were.
But the Apache never warmed to the Spanish Mission and so there were no Apache in the mission when the Comanche and Wichita attacked it.
Although the location was good for agriculture, with green pastures and creeks, Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla wrote in 1758:
"The Apaches were evidently unimpressed by the strength of the new Presidio, for they quite refused to settle at the Mission.
Indeed the whole establishment stood like bait at the very edge of the Comanche territory."
And BAIT it was.
These Plains Indians,
the Comanche and the Wichita -
they ran this land
and they ran it.
Over 300 some miles
from the Spanish Fort on the Red River
on the border with Oklahoma
they headed to the San Saba
near Menard Texas.
Those Spaniards and their allied Apache
made the same trip too, to take revenge.
They started from the San Saba near Menard Texas,
heading to the Red River to take their revenge.
This is the time period of the Alamo too.
It was built
the year
James Wood
founded the town of
Winchester Virginia in 1744.
The Alamo was
By the time of the
16 March 1758 attack
the Apache had become
friendly to the Spanish.
During this time
the Alamo in San Antonio
is in safer territory.
But just to stay safe,
the Alamo added
a protective wall
after that 16 March 1758 attack.
The more northern outposts of the Mission and the Presidio on the San Saba are clearly not safe.
The Spanish are allied with the Apache but have not been able to convert them to Christianity.
That problem though, is put on the back burner.
Their northern enemies,
the Comanche and the Wichita, continue to threaten their outposts on the San Saba.
This attack is immortalized in a beautiful painting.
This painting kept the story and the interest alive.
Paintings often do that.
Nobody named their counties after Dr Joseph Warren until a painting depicted his death at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Multiple paintings of that were created by Trumbull between 1815 and 1831.
They travelled around the country inspiring many, including our Warren Co VA when it split off mostly from Frederick Co VA and Shenandoah County in 9 March 1836.
This painting of the attack on the Mission is painted in 1765, seven years after the attack.
It spawned an interest to find that long lost Spanish Mission.
The rich silver mine owner, Pedro Romero de Terreros, paid the artist to create this painting.
He is the same silver miner who financed the now destroyed Mission on San Saba and whose cousin was killed there,
Historians wanted to find it of course.
They wanted to prove if that painting of the attack was accurate.
Many details in this picture the archaeologist prove to be true in 1993 when they find the long lost Spanish Mission.
That search for that long lost mission is a story in and of itself.
And that rich silver mine owner?
The one whose cousin was killed at that Mission and who had financed that Mission and who paid the artist to make that painting?
He owned an extraordinary rich silver mine.
He owned this one:
Wikipedia: The Mine District of Pachuca—Real del Monte has a long and rich heritage. The mines in the district are conservatively estimated to have produced 1.2 billion Troy ounces of silver and 6.2 million ounces of gold.
That is 6% of the silver mined throughout the world during the last five centuries. Some of the mines have continued limited production until the present day.
This owner of that silver mine, Pedro Romero de Terreros (1710–1781), is also known for something else.
He saved an extensive historical record of the time.
According to his biographer Edith Boorstein Couturier, "no equivalent archives exist for other important eighteenth-century figures."
And that Revenge Attack in 1759?
It didn't go so well for the Spanish and their allied Apache.
There were two villages maybe numbering a total of 6000. The main group comprising these 2 towns were Wichita, with Comanche teepees sitting on the periphery.
The villages were flying a French flag.
You will often see Taovya or Caddo or Wichita mentioned.
That can be confusing because it makes you think they are different groups.
They are all are related under the Wichita umbrella.
Wikipedia summarizes it the best:
The Taovaya tribe of the Wichita people were Native Americans originally from Kansas, who moved south into Oklahoma and Texas in the 18th century. They spoke the Taovaya dialect of the Wichita language, a Caddoan language.
The estimated number of warriors fighting the Spanish, maybe only totaled 600.
The Wichita beat back the Spanish who were seeking revenge for the Comanche and Wichita attack on the Spanish Mission and Presidio on the San Saba last year in 1758.
The 1759 revenge battle gone wrong is called the Battle of the Twin Villages.
Those 2 large villages sat on both sides of the Red River, the current border of Texas and Oklahoma.
The fort they had is called The Spanish Fort .
But it wasn't a Spanish Fort.
It was Wichita.
Named wrong only because white visitors saw the ruins of it and assumed it was Spanish.
Whites did not believe Indians built forts.
Spain has not joined France
yet in this world wide war, and won't do so until 1762.
Our Lord Loudoun is asked later to fight in Portugal against Spain. He had commanded as Chief of all forces in North America until end of 1757 but doesn't leave until March 1758. His name adorns our Winchester walking mall street and a county in Virginia and 3 forts in 3 different states. He later goes to Portugal to defend it against the Spanish when Spain joins the world wide Seven Years War.
Lord Loudoun commands much larger armies than he ever did here. And Portugal has forever been an ally of England.
This is the end of our lead story.
Compiled and authored by Jim Moyer 3/14/2022, updated 3/15/2022, 3/16/2022. 3/17/2022, 3/19/2022
The next part is a short description of the Attack of 16 March 1758.
The next section prints the full text of the story from the National Park Service
The next sections list all the sources
for the claims made here.
There's a lot.
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces.
THE ATTACK ON THE SAN SABA RIVER
First Attack Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá,
On the morning of March 16, 1758, Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá, a small, hastily constructed compound enclosed by a wooden palisade, was surrounded by 2000 hostile Indians including Wichita, Comanche, and Caddo warriors. The three Spanish priests in residence tried to placate the allied native force with gifts and offers of safe passage to the nearby Presidio, but the palisade was soon overcome and Father Terreros, the mission leader, was killed along with several others. A small group of people who survived the attack took refuge in the church, the mission's largest structure. Meanwhile, the palisade and several buildings were set on fire as the Indians sacked the place and began celebrating victory. Sporadic fighting continued as the Indians fired their French muskets at the church and tried to gain entry.
Second Attack Presidio San Sabá
Four miles upstream, the 30 soldiers at the Presidio San Sabá heard the terrible din, saw the smoke from the fires, and were soon surrounded themselves. While they were able to keep the Indians at bay, the soldiers could not come to the rescue of the mission—two-thirds of the garrison was away on various forays. As night fell, the victorious allied natives roasted several slaughtered oxen and feasted a short distance from the beleaguered missionaries. While the victorious Indians were feasting, the survivors led by Juan Leal, escaped the burning church under cover of darkness and made their way to the Presidio, many of them badly wounded. The arrival of additional reinforcements (returning soldiers) at the Presidio the next day apparently saved the garrison from a similar fate as that of the mission.
The Story of Finding it Again
Burned and shattered, the abandoned Mission San Sabá passed into history and legend, illustrated by the famous mural shown above. Presidio San Sabá was strengthened and manned for another decade because of its strategic role in Spanish mining operations nearby, but then it, too, was abandoned as the Spanish frontier retreated southward. The ruins of the presidio remained as highly visible reminders of the Spanish presence. But the remnants of the sacked mission, never substantial to begin with, dwindled. Picked over time and again by souvenir hunters, it disappeared as a known place shortly after 1900. Historians and archeologists began trying to relocate Mission San Sabá in the mid-1960s, but it was not until 1993 that the search met success.
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Sources:
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Another take on the matter thru the leading commander's eyes:
Diego Ortiz Parrilla made it clear that he did not believe the Apache people were open to conversion, and became personally involved in a feud between two rival factions within the missionary group led by the frays Mariano de los Dolores y Viana and Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, who disagreed about where the mission should be established.
Parrilla had visited the site preferred by Dolores and found it very agreeable, but Terreros was president of the mission and his cousin, Pedro Romero de Terreros, was its benefactor; the latter accused Parrilla of wasting time and money by furthering the feud rather than ending it.
Despite his doubts over the viability of the mission and the likelihood of converting any Native people, Parrilla eventually followed through with his orders and arrived at the San Sabá River on 17 April 1757.
After exploring the valley, Parrilla established a new fort to protect the missionaries at a site one mile west of present-day Menard, Texas, becoming the first commander of the Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas.[also known as Presidio de San Saba].
Parrilla oversaw geological surveys which searched for mineral deposits and studied ores from the Las Almagres Mine, which would later become well known after it was lost and eventually sought out by treasure hunters such as American frontiersman James Bowie. A log stockade was also built at the fort. The missionaries, distrustful of Parrilla for his handling of the Pima Revolt and the feud months earlier, established their mission to the northeast of the fort.
Over the course of the next eleven months, Parrilla began to fear that an raid on San Sabá was inevitable, and asked the missionaries to relocate to the site of the presidio for protection, but they declined.
A 2,000-strong Comanche army attacked the San Sabá de la Santa Cruz mission on 16 March 1758, killing eight or ten people including two missionaries: mission president Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, and Joseph de Santiesteban.
The mission site was burned down.
The remaining settlers fled to the fort [the Presidio de San Saba] where Parrilla and his soldiers defended against the raiders as they attempted to besiege it for several days.
In December, a Comanche-led militia armed with muskets attacked and killed a group of Apache men near the presidio, killing 21 of them. Another attack occurred in March 1759 when the same raiders responsible for the massacre one year earlier again struck at San Sabá, killing the 19 men guarding the presidio's herd and stealing 750 horses.
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Source:
Clarifying the Names
This map clarifies the names of the Mission and the names of the Presidio.
This map is the scene of the attack.
The Attack aimed at the Mission first.
The Mission is east of today's Menard Texas on the San Saba.
The Presidio, the garrisoned Spanish fort, is west of today's Menard Texas and was built there to protect nearby Spanish Mines.
Mission de San Saba
also called Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba.
Presidio de San Saba
also called Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas.
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Full Text of Article
from the National Park Service:
Jose de Paez is the painter
This is a mural painted in 1765 that details the destruction of Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba (which occurred in 1758). The mural was commissioned by Pedro Romero de Terreros, who had sponsored the mission and whose cousin died in the attack. The unsigned mural is attributed to Jose de Paez. It was titled "The Destruction of Mission San Sabá in the Province of Texas and the Martyrdom of the Fathers Alonso de Terreros, Joseph Santiesteban"
"The Destruction of Mission San Sabá in the Province of Texas and the Martyrdom of the Fathers Alonso de Terreros, Joseph
Santiesteban.” Painted 7 years after the events, depicts a Spanish interpretation of the destruction of the mission. Attributed to Jose de Paez, 1765. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
During the Spanish period in Texas, complex interactions between the American Indian groups and the Spanish and French sometimes culminated in violence with missions at the center.
One particularly well-documented event was the destruction of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá, near what is today Menard, Texas.
The Mission San Sabá was established in 1757 for the Lipan Apache.
The Lipan Apache, however, had enemies among the Comanche and other northern Texas Indian groups, who, after learning that their enemies would be at the mission, attacked and burned the mission. San Sabá was abandoned after the attack. It was once called "the lost mission of Texas" because its exact location was unknown until the early 1990s. Today, the site is a Texas Historic Landmark and the Presidio San Sabá is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Picture: Ruins of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá. Photograph by mlhradio via Flickr and creative commons license
The above caption is incorrect. Nothing survives from the Mission. This is just another picture of the Presidio that is 3 or 4 miles away from the Mission.
Mining Interests and the Missions A variety of conflicting interests led to the establishment of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá in 1757. The Lipan Apache, who had often raided the Spanish missions to the south near what is today San Antonio, entered into a peace treaty with the Spanish and reportedly requested a mission. The Lipan Apache were pragmatically seeking an ally and some protection from their enemies, which included the Comanche, Tejas, Tonkawas, and Bidais. Spanish officials were happy to pursue peace and establish a presence in an area they thought might soon be claimed by the French. Discovery of silver in the San Sabá country convinced officials to move the San Xavier presidio to San Sabá to serve the Apache, provide a defense against French intrusions, and open the mining district of Los Almagres. Missionaries, escorted by 100 soldiers, volunteered to establish three missions along the Río San Sabá.
Lipan Apache warrior, 1857.Drawing by Arthur Schott, United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Mine owner Don Pedro de Terreros offered to fund as many as 20 missions for a period of three years to pacify the Apache and other Plains tribes in the area. His cousin, Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, was named Father Superior of those missions. The Spanish established the settlement in 1757, and the priests set the location for the mission relatively far from the Presidio San Sabá, wary from past conflicts and harassment between soldiers and native people. Ultimately, the mission was located a relatively distant four miles from the presidio and on the other side of the San Xavier River. Missionaries arrive In 1756, Father Terreros and his missionaries, along with nine Tlaxcalans to help teach the catechism to mission neophytes, reached San Antonio. From there, they proceeded to the Río San Sabá and founded Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá. Nearby, the soldiers established Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas, or Presidio de San Sabá. Oddly, when the missionaries arrived at San Sabá, no Indians were there to meet them. Shortly, through messengers, they assembled a large group of Lipan Apaches, numbering 3,000 warriors, who were not interested in a mission or the missionaries. They happened to be hunting buffalo. Other bands among them were a warring party heading north to fight their enemies. None of them were interested or willing to remain at the mission, although some promised to return. Disappointed, some of the missionaries abandoned their assignment and returned to San Antonio.
Although the location was good for agriculture, with green pastures and creeks, Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla wrote in 1758, "The Apaches were evidently unimpressed by the strength of the new Presidio, for they quite refused to settle at the Mission. Indeed the whole establishment stood like bait at the very edge of the Comanche territory."
On March 16, 1758, a group of over 1,500 Comanche, Tejas, Tonkawas, Bidais and other northern Texas tribes surrounded the mission looking for Apache.
They looted and burned the mission buildings, and although the group was specifically seeking Lipan Apache, two priests, four soldiers, and two mission residents died in the attack. The Comanche considered it a great victory against old enemies, but from the Spanish perspective, it was a massacre. The event touched off a series of Comanche raids. In 1759, over 600 Spanish soldiers from as far away as San Luis Potosí, settlements in Coahuila and Sierra Gorda, along with Tlaxcalan and Apache allies launched a punitive campaign against the northern groups, killing 55 warriors and taking 150 prisoners.
Picture: Comanche Feats of Horsemanship. George Catlin 1834. Comanche raiding became a major problem for Spanish missions in mid to late 18th century. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. Finding San Sabá Although the events at Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá were well documented and the Lipan Apache remembered them in oral histories, San Sabá's location was lost for most of the 20th century and was the subject of searches for many decades. During the Indian raid in 1758, fire destroyed most of the mission's temporary structures of wood, wattle, and daub. Weather and soil tilling over time erased the above-surface features and a large portion of the sub-surface features. In contrast, the Presidio San Sabá was rebuilt of stone in 1761, sending a message to French and American Indian groups that the Spanish intended to stay. The presidio only lasted until 1769, when it and the 130-mile swath of land leading to San Antonio were finally abandoned to the Comanche and their allies. Its more permanent construction made the location easier to find in the 20th century. A Works Progress Administration project rebuilt a portion of the fort for the Texas Centennial in 1936, and today it is open to the public. The rediscovery of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá was the result of years of research and survey. The 1993 discovery of the mission site in an alfalfa field east of Menard came after repeated attempts to find it. Through several field seasons, the archeologists identified soil stains left by wooden poles and posts used in building the mission. In addition to the evidence of the structural components of the mission, they found artifacts like an heirloom brass sundial dating to 1580, lead musket balls, horse bridles, and religious medallions along with a large pit full of burned cattle bone. The rediscovery and excavations were the culmination of decades of searching and generations of researchers.
Picture:
Presidio San Luis de Las Amarillas, today known as Presidio San Sabá, was established with to help protect the Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá. Photo by Larry D. Moore, 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
What you can see today Mission Santa Cruz de Sabá is a reminder of the complex and sometimes violent interactions among American Indian groups and the Spanish and demonstrates how the Lipan Apache strategically used alliances with the Spanish and missions. The San Sabá Mission site is three miles east of Menard on Farm-to-Market Road 2092. The Texas Centennial Marker is along the highway immediately beside an alfalfa field. A historical marker plaque designates the site today, but there are no visible structures. For more information about the site, visitors can stop by the reconstructed site of the Presidio San Sabá. Visitors can walk through the site, picnic near the stone walls, and enjoy the interpretive panels that detail the history of the presidio and mission. The presidio was reconstructed by a Works Progress Administration project in 1936. Today the Site of Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas, also known as Presidio San Sabá, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Landscaping with native plants and interpretive materials help visitors to visualize what the area looked like in the mid-18th century. Visitors can also get a sense of the historic landscape along the Historic Ditch Walk in downtown Menard that features several historic sites, including the presidio, and walk along the irrigation canal first cut by the Spanish in the 1750s and still used by local farmers today.
Plan Your Visit
Mission Santa Cruz de Sabá is designated by the Texas Historical Commission marker located on Ranch Road 2092 (Farm to Market Road 2092), on the left when traveling east from Menard, TX. The site of Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas, also known as Presidio San Sabá, is on the National Register of Historic Places and is located one mile west of Menard, TX on US 190 at 191 Presidio Rd. Admission is free, and the presidio is open daily with staff on site. For more information, visit the Presidio San Saba website or call 325-396-4682.
Last updated: October 31, 2017
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Article below from the National Park Service
More sources:
PEDRO ROMERO DE TERREROS
(1710–1781)
Pedro Romero de Terreros, Mexican mining magnate who financed the ill-fated San Sabá Mission, was born in Cortegana, Spain, in 1710.
At a young age he manifested exceptional intellectual abilities, and for a time his parents thought of sending him into training for the priesthood. Instead, at age twenty-two, he was sent to New Spain to live with his uncle, Juan Vázquez de Terreros, a prominent citizen of Santiago de Querétero. Young Terreros took over management of the family's declining businesses and quickly returned them to profitability. After his uncle's death in 1735, he assumed his place in various civic functions, including alcalde of Querétero. In 1756 he married Doña María Antonia de Trebuesto y Dávalos, the daughter of a wealthy noble family in Mexico City.
Showing a remarkable facility for making money, particularly with several mining ventures, Don Terreros amassed a considerable fortune. From the 1740s on, he was also noted for his philanthropic activities. Between 1745 and his death, he gave 41,933 pesos to the Colegio de San Fernando de México, 91,023 pesos to the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Querétero, and another 100,000 pesos to a monastery in Pachuca.
In 1756 he learned of plans by officials to establish missions for the Lipan Apaches in west central Texas and offered to underwrite the project. He pledged a subsidy of 150,000 pesos for twenty missionaries for three years, after which time the financial responsibility for the venture would be turned over to the civil government. He stipulated that his cousin, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, be placed in charge of the missions and that all military expenses be borne by the royal treasury. Terreros also requested permission to purchase the assets of the three San Gabriel missions, if they were abandoned, so that they could be turned over to his cousin.
In 1757, with Terreros's backing, Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission was founded near the site of present Menard.
The venture, however, proved to be a failure; not a single Apache was converted to the faith, and the following year the mission was attacked and destroyed by a band of Comanches and other hostile Indians. Fray Alonso and another priest were killed, and the mission was permanently abandoned.
Deeply saddened by the death of his cousin, Terreros, around 1763, commissioned a painting by an unknown artist portraying the sack of the mission complex and the martyrdom of Fray Alonso.
The San Sabá Mission painting is generally believed to be, in the words of Sam D. Ratcliffe, "the earliest extant easel painting by a professional artist depicting an event in Texas history." Terreros continued his philanthropic activities after the destruction of San Sabá and died in Mexico in 1781.
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The bio of the Rich Silver Mine owner:
The Rich Silver Mine:
The Mine District of Pachuca—Real del Monte has a long and rich heritage. The mines in the district are conservatively estimated to have produced 1.2 billion Troy ounces of silver and 6.2 million ounces of gold. That is 6% of the silver mined throughout the world during the last five centuries. Some of the mines have continued limited production until the present day.
The Revenge Battle in 1759
SPANISH FORT, TX.
Spanish Fort is located in north central Montague County at the end of Farm Road 103 one mile south of the Red River.
Spanish Fort began in the eighteenth century as a fortified Taovaya Indian settlement, misnamed later by Anglo settlers who found Spanish artifacts and ruins of a fort near the site. Spanish records show that between 1750 and 1757 the Taovayas established two permanent villages on opposite sides of the Red River near the site.
The story is told that in 1759 Col. Diego Ortiz Parrilla led a retaliation effort against Taovaya and Comanche Indians who had looted San Luis de las Amarillas Presidio. Several hundred Spanish soldiers found the Taovayan village fortified with entrenchments, wooden stockades, and a moat and protected by some 6,000 Indians flying the French flag. After a four-hour battle the Spanish retreated. They even left their baggage train and two cannon.
By 1771 the Spanish had made peace with the Indians, but concern over continued theft, especially of horses, led to a visit in 1778 by Athanase de Mézières, lieutenant governor of the Natchitoches region. He named the region San Teodoro and persuaded the Taovayas to surrender the two cannon.
Beginning in 1778 a series of smallpox epidemics and American encroachment after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 decimated the population.
By 1841 the Taovayas had left their fortification to crumble in San Teodoro. An early White settler reported visiting the ruins in 1859, but since the Taovayas had long ago departed, he had no idea of their history and assumed the ruin had been an old Spanish fort. By the early 1870s a town called Burlington had developed near the site of San Teodoro. It served as a watering-hole for cattle drivers headed for the Chisholm Trail. Stockmen on the trail bedded their herds at Red River Station, then rode to nearby Burlington for supplies and entertainment. The town grew quickly, and local citizens applied for a post office in 1876, but postal authorities supposedly rejected their request because another post office in Texas had the name.
Two local men suggested the misnomer "Spanish Fort" after the ruins nearby. The new name was accepted, and the Spanish Fort post office opened in 1877. At its peak, the town had numerous businesses and churches, a Masonic lodge, five physicians, four hotels, and several saloons, the most popular of which was J. W. Schrock's Cowboy Saloon, where cattle men collected to drink and swap stories. On the town square, Herman J. Justin founded the boot company which later grew into Justin Industries. Justin took orders from the drivers going north and had their custom boots ready in time for them to pick up on their way south again.
By 1884, when the first school opened in a log building, at least two newspapers had been published in Spanish Fort, the Burlington Times and the Spanish Fort New Era. The population reached 300 by 1885, but Spanish Fort developed a reputation as a rough town. Justin's wife later reported that over forty murders took place there during the cattle heyday-indeed, on one Christmas morning, three men were killed before breakfast. Outlaws hiding out in Indian Territory crossed the Red River to obtain supplies at Spanish Fort, causing frequent "affrays" which further disrupted the town. Ultimately, the excitement at Spanish Fort died down when the cattle trails moved further west, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway bypassed the settlement. In the late 1880s Justin moved his boot company to nearby Nocona, where it continued to flourish in the 1980s. Spanish Fort's population remained at about 250 through the first forty years of the twentieth century, with a half-dozen businesses surviving to 1941. As better job opportunities attracted residents elsewhere, the population rapidly declined to only forty by 1952. The post office and all but one of the businesses closed around 1970.
By the 1990s Spanish Fort had become a virtual ghost town. The ruins of the old Taovaya fortification had disappeared after more than a century of farming by Spanish Fort residents, but a state historical monument, erected in 1936, marked the site of old San Teodoro. In 2000 Spanish Fort had a population of fifty, but nearly all of the buildings in the square, including a brick school erected in 1924, remained empty and abandoned.
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