Menard, Texas, a scenic Central Texas town established in 1858 along the San Saba River, grew modestly as a farming and ranching center in a pecan-fringed valley on the Edwards Plateau in the Texas Hill Country. A century before its founding, a Spanish colony stood here, and for thousands of years before that the San Saba region was home to many generations of Indians. The Spanish colony, which existed from 1757 to about 1770, centered on the Real Presidio de San Saba and Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba, where soldiers protected Franciscan priests and newly converted Indians while the priests sought to settle and Christianize Lipan Apache Indians. The Spaniards also built a river dam and an acequia to irrigate farmland, and that acequia system, known in downtown Menard as the Ditch Walk, still functions. Before Menard County was created in 1858, Menardville was a frontier town in Bexar County whose rich grasslands and abundant water favored cattle raising, and after the Civil War cattlemen trailed stock to northern markets. Seeking rail service to compete with places that already had railroads, local residents formed a committee in 1909, donated right-of-way land, raised depot funds, and secured a forty-mile Frisco extension from Brady. In 1910 Menardville became Menard at the railway company’s request, and the railroad carried freight and passengers, with cattle lanes running toward Sonora and Junction and sometimes as many as 50,000 cattle en route to Menard. Competition from motor vehicles reduced service in the 1920s and 1930s, and after freight also declined, the line closed in 1972.