Franciscan missionaries founded Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba in April 1757 near the newly built presidio on the San Saba River, aiming to convert and settle Lipan Apache bands as part of Spain's effort to pacify the frontier north of San Antonio. The mission was led by Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros and financed largely by his wealthy relative, mine owner Pedro Romero de Terreros; roughly 300 people, including missionaries, soldiers, and laborers, arrived to establish it, but the Apache never settled there in significant numbers, leaving the mission's conversion effort largely unrealized. On March 16, 1758, an estimated 2,000 warriors from allied Comanche, Wichita, and other groups attacked and burned the mission, killing Father Terreros and several others at the gate, a decisive demonstration that northern tribes, armed with French firearms, had gained military superiority over Spanish forces on this frontier. The mission was never rebuilt, and its exact location was lost for over two centuries until archaeologists rediscovered and authenticated the site in 1993-94 on private land about three miles east of Menard, recovering more than 300 Spanish artifacts. Because the site sits on private property with no standing structure, its present-day function is almost entirely commemorative and archaeological: it is marked by roadside historical markers (including one from 1936) and referenced in interpretive materials tied to the nearby Presidio San Saba site, rather than open for general public visitation.