San Saba, TX

San Saba is the San Saba County seat on the San Saba River, about 90 miles northwest of Austin. The 2020 census counted 3,117 residents. Settled in 1854 and made county seat in 1856, the city grew around a courthouse, river crossing, cattle trails, and later pecan orchards. Edmund E. Risien arrived from England in the 1870s, selected a thin-shelled native pecan, and planted an orchard at the San Saba–Colorado river junction. That work is why San Saba still carries the Pecan Capital of the World nickname. San Saba's first courthouse was completed in 1857 and replaced by a stone structure in 1871.

The river is a working boundary: the 1938 flood spread through more than a third of the city, around the courthouse and business district, and cut off residents north of the river. San Saba Independent School District keeps elementary, middle, and high school in the town's daily orbit. San Saba's local scoop is a county-seat town where pecan orchards, courthouse stone, cattle country, and a river with a long memory all share the same map.