Cooke's Spring, or Cookes Spring, is a spring in Luna County, New Mexico at an elevation of 4839 feet. [1] Cooke's Spring is located at the eastern mouth of the narrow upper Cooke's Canyon, part of what was called Cooke's Pass, a narrow gap, running east and west, through the Cooke's Range.
Cooke's Spring was named for Philip St. George Cooke, 2nd U.S. Dragoons, the commander of the Mormon Battalion, that camped at the spring on November 16, 1846, while Cooke's command was exploring and building what became known as Cooke's Wagon Road, a wagon road to San Diego, California from Santa Fe, New Mexico. The spring was the only large supply of fresh water between the Rio Grande and the Mimbres River for travelers on the Southern Immigrant Trail. Wagon trains heading to California as well as the later San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and Butterfield Overland Mail used it. The Cooke's Spring Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage route was located near Cooke's Spring from 1858 to 1861.
Near the end of the American Civil War, Fort Cummings was established near the spring and stage station to protect travelers along the stage route and as a base of operations in the Apache Wars in the following decades. [2]
Butterfield Overland Mail was a stagecoach service in the United States operating from 1858 to 1861. It carried passengers and U.S. Mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California. The routes from each eastern terminus met at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then continued through Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, and California ending in San Francisco. On March 3, 1857, Congress authorized the U.S. postmaster general, at that time Aaron V. Brown, to contract for delivery of the U.S. mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. Prior to this, U.S. Mail bound for the Far West had been delivered by the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line since June 1857.
Apache Pass, also known by its earlier Spanish name Puerto del Dado, is a historic mountain pass in the U.S. state of Arizona between the Dos Cabezas Mountains and Chiricahua Mountains at an elevation of 5,110 feet (1,560 m). It is approximately 20 miles (32 km) east-southeast of Willcox, Arizona, in Cochise County.
Warner's Ranch, near Warner Springs, California, was notable as a way station for large numbers of emigrants on the Southern Emigrant Trail from 1849 to 1861, as it was a stop on both the Gila River Trail and the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line (1859-1861). It was also operated as a pioneering cattle ranch.
Fort Cummings is a former U. S. Army post located near Cooke's Springs, in Luna County, New Mexico. It is located 20 miles northeast of Deming, New Mexico.
The Butterfield Overland Mail in California was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until June 30, 1861. Subsequently, other stage lines operated along the Butterfield Overland Mail in route in Alta California until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Yuma, Arizona in 1877.
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows; however, it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857–1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.
Alamo Mucho Station, the misspelled name of Alamo Mocho Station was one of the original Butterfield Overland Mail stations located south of the Mexican border, in Baja California. Its location is 0.5 miles south-southeast of the Mexicali International Airport Terminal building.
The San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line, also known as the Jackass Mail, was the earliest overland stagecoach and mail operation from the Eastern United States to California in operation between 1857 and 1861. It was created, organized and financed by James E. Birch the head of the California Stage Company. Birch was awarded the first contract for overland service on the "Southern Route", designated Route 8076. This contract required a semi-monthly service in four-horse coaches, scheduled to leave San Antonio and San Diego on the ninth and the 24th of each month, with 30 days allowed for each trip.
The Butterfield Overland Mail was a transport and mail delivery system that employed stagecoaches that travelled on a specific route between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California and which passed through the New Mexico Territory. It was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until March 30, 1861. The route that was operated extended from where the ferry across the Colorado River to Fort Yuma Station, California was located, through New Mexico Territory via Tucson to the Rio Grande and Mesilla, New Mexico then south to Franklin, Texas, midpoint on the route. The New Mexico Territory mail route was divided into two divisions each under a superintendent. Tucson was the headquarters of the 3rd Division of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. Franklin Station in the town of Franklin,, was the headquarters of the 4th Division.
Mowry City is a ghost town first in Dona Anna County, then Grant County and finally in Luna County, New Mexico, United States, approximately 25 miles (40 km) north of Deming. Originally it was the crossing point of Cooke's Wagon Road on the Mimbres River. Mowry City was formerly the location of Rio Mimbres, a stop on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, and Miembre's River Station, a stagecoach stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail and later stagecoach routes. The town lasted from 1859 until the arrival of the railroad in southern New Mexico in 1881.
The Butterfield Overland Mail route in Baja California was created as a result of an act by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until June 30, 1861 as part of the Second Division of the route. Subsequently other stage lines operated along the route until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Yuma, Arizona.
Vallecito, in San Diego County, California, is an oasis of cienegas and salt grass along Vallecito Creek and a former Kumeyaay settlement on the edge of the Colorado Desert in the Vallecito Valley. Its Spanish name is translated as "little valley". Vallecito was located at the apex of the gap in the Carrizo Badlands created by Carrizo Creek and its wash in its lower reach, to which Vallecito Creek is a tributary. The springs of Vallecito, like many in the vicinity, are a product of the faults that run along the base of the Peninsular Ranges to the west.
Ojo de Vaca Station, was a Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station at Ojo de Vaca, in New Mexico Territory. It was located 14 mi (23 km) northeast of Soldiers Farewell Station and 16 mi (26 km) southwest of Miembre's River Station, later Mowry City. The site is now Cow Springs Ranch located in Luna County, New Mexico, United States.
Cooke's Spring Station, located near Cooke's Spring, New Mexico was a stage station of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage route from 1858 to 1861 and of subsequent stage lines until made obsolete by the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in New Mexico.
Cooke's Pass, also known as Massacre Canyon, is a narrow gap running east and west through the Cookes Range In Luna County, New Mexico. Its apex is a saddle, at an elevation of about 5100 feet between Fryingpan Canyon on the west and the narrow upper part of Cooke's Canyon west of Cooke's Spring. Cooke's Pass is just north of Massacre Peak.
Cooke's Canyon or Cookes Canyon, a valley and ephemeral stream, located on the eastern slope of the Cooke's Range in Luna County, New Mexico. It has its source at 32°28′20″N107°40′47″W north of Massacre Peak. The mouth of Cooke's Canyon is at its confluence with Fort Cummings Draw.
Massacre Peak, a summit at an elevation of 5,667 feet (1,727 m) in the Cookes Range in Luna County, New Mexico.
The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the Southern Emigrant Trail. It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel John Coffee Hays followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorter route than Cooke's Wagon Road which passed farther south to cross the mountains to the San Pedro River at Guadalupe Pass.
Soldiers Farewell Hill, a summit at an elevation of 6135 feet, in the Big Burro Mountains, in Grant County, New Mexico.
32°27′46″N107°38′55″W / 32.46278°N 107.64861°W