[33] San Antonio Express, October 21, 1923, p. 1. [↑]
[34] For good satire on Texan credulity in Mexican mines, see On A Mexican Mustang Through Texas, by Alex E. Sweet and J. Armory Knox, Rand, McNally and Co., New York, 1892, pp. 439–452. [↑]
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.
“To discover a rumored Silver Hill (Cerro de la Plata) somewhere to the north, several attempts were made before 1650 from both Nuevo Leon and Nueva Vizcaya, but were frustrated by Indian hostilities.”[1]
“Sir,… the principal vein is more than two square bars thick, and from a distance the upper part of it looks to be more than [[13]]thirty bars wide.… We met Indians who assured us that on beyond the almagres were still larger and richer … and that there we might find an abundance not only of ore but of pure silver.… But the mines of Cerro del Almagre are so numerous … that I pledge myself to give the inhabitants of the province of Texas one each, without any man’s being prejudiced in the measurements.” Thus reported Bernardo de Miranda as a result of his prospecting tour for minerals in the Llano country in 1756.[2] And partly “because an opulence and abundance of silver and gold was the principal foundation upon which the kingdom of Spain rested” (“por que la riqueza y abundancia de plata, y oro, es el fundo principal de que resuelta los reinos de España”),[3] as the royal viceroy of Mexico took occasion to remind his subordinates, an immediate establishment of mission and presidio on the San Saba River was undertaken and the mining enterprise presumably launched.