The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971 Page: 227
616 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Notes and Documents
of Salvador Carrasco's 1822 petition to the emperor of Mexico, ob-
tained from the archives at Monterrey, was translated by Jose Antonio
Quintero and published in the 1868 Texas Almanac. Although the
petition identified Los Almagres as a Spanish mine, Quintero's pub-
lication did little more than reintroduce the name to Anglo Texas.
More credence was given the publication in 1904 of Elizabeth West's
translation of Antonio Bonilla's summary of Texas history. Bonilla
mentioned the first official inspection of the mineral deposit at Los
Almagres, accomplished by Bernardo de Miranda in 1756. Shortly
after West's publication of Bonilla's work, John Warren Hunter made
an unconvincing attempt to show that Los Almagres was another
name for the mine purported to be at the old presidio of San Saba
near Menard." As professor of history at the University of Texas,
Herbert Eugene Bolton obtained from the Archivo General y Piblico
de la Naci6n in Mexico City a copy of Miranda's journal of his inspec-
tion of Los Almagres. In the spring of 1907, accompanied by J. Farley
of Dallas, Bolton followed the route described in Miranda's journal,
and it led him to the Boyd shaft, seventy-five miles east of where
Hunter had located the mine. Farley established the Los Almagres
Mining Company, and in June, 19o9, members of the United States
Geological Survey visited the site, where another shaft had recently
been sunk. They later showed its location on a geologic map of Llano
County and described the mine as being unproductive.'"
Believing that the Spanish activity at Los Almagres was responsible
for the well-known legend, Bolton announced that he had discovered
the lost San Saba silver mine; but schemers and dreamers have con-
tinued to search for the fabled lode in other places. Geologist John
Masters, as late as 1956, presented supposedly "scientific evidence"
5"Quintero, "San Saba Gold and Silver Mines," 83; Elizabeth Howard West, "Bonilla's
Brief Compendium of the History of Texas, 1772," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical
Association, VIII (July, 1904), 54, 63, 64; John W. Hunter, Rise and Fall of the Mission
San Saba, to which is appended a Brief History of the Bowie or Almagres Mine (Mason,
Texas, 1905). In a review of Hunter's book Herbert Eugene Bolton noted skeptically that
the author seemed to have "access to a number of rare works, some of them not com-
monly known even to special students of Texas history," and that his contribution was
impaired by his "failure at a number of critical points, to cite his authorities." Quarterly
of the Texas State Historical Association, IX (January, 1906), 226.
1Herbert E. Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, 1915), 83 n.;
Mineral lease, Robert and Ben F. Boyd to J. Farley, July, 1907, Llano County Deed
Records (County Clerk's Office, Llano, Texas), Book 46, pp. 36-37; Mineral lease, J.
Farley to Los Almagres Mining Company, April 7, 19o9, ibid., Book 45, PP. 421-422;
A. C. Spencer, "Riley Mountain," in Sidney Paige, Mineral Resources of the Llano-Burnet
Region, Texas, United States Geological Survey Bulletin no. 450 (Washington, 1911), 55.227
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971, periodical, 1971; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101200/m1/239/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.