Soldiers Farewell Hill, a summit at an elevation of 6135 feet, in the

Big Burro Mountains The Big Burro Mountains are a moderate length long, mountain range located in central Grant County, New Mexico. The range's northwest-southeast 'ridgeline' is located 15 mi southwest of Silver City. The southeast end of the range has the Co ...

, in

Grant County, New Mexico Grant County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. At the 2020 census, the population was 28,185. Its county seat is Silver City. The county was founded in 1868 and named for Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United St ...

History

Soldiers Farewell Hill lies south of the Burro Cienega. It marked the site of Ojo Ynez, a watering place nearby the old road between

Janos, Chihuahua Janos is a town located in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. It serves as the municipal seat of government for the surrounding Janos Municipality of the same name. As of 2010, the town of Janos had a population of 2,738. Janos was possibl ...

and the Santa Rita

copper mine Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

s, later used by

Cooke's Wagon Road Cooke's Wagon Road or Cooke's Road was the first wagon road between the Rio Grande and the Colorado River to San Diego, through the Mexican provinces of Nuevo México, Chihuahua, Sonora and Alta California, established by Philip St. George ...

and the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. This summit lies over 2 miles east of the site of the Soldier's Farewell Stage Station of the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...

. An apocryphal explanation of the romantic name (and the most widely accepted) is that soldiers escorting wagon trains en route to California were ordered to go no further than this location, where they bid the travelers, "Farewell."

References

Landforms of Grant County, New Mexico Mountains of New Mexico Mountains of Grant County, New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub