Tucson Cutoff
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The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the
Southern Emigrant Trail :''The Southern Emigrant Trail should not be confused with the Applegate Trail, which is part of the Northern Emigrant Trails.'' Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage ...
. It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel
John Coffee Hays John Coffee "Jack" Hays (January 28, 1817 – April 21, 1883) was an American military officer. A captain in the Texas Rangers and a military officer of the Republic of Texas, Hays served in several armed conflicts from 1836 to 1848, including a ...
followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorter route than
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 ...
which passed farther south to cross the mountains to the San Pedro River at Guadalupe Pass.


Route

The Tucson Cutoff ran from Ojo de Ynez on Cooke's Wagon Road on the southeast side of 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 ...
to the southwest to a spring and through a pass in the
Pyramid Mountains The Pyramid Mountains are a 30 mi (48 km) long, mountain range in central-east Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The city of Lordsburg and Interstate 10 lie at its northern border. The range lies between the northeast corner of the north-sou ...
south of today's
Lordsburg Lordsburg is a city in and the county seat of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, United States. Hidalgo County includes the southern "bootheel" of New Mexico, along the Arizona border. The population was 2,797 at the 2010 census, down from 3,379 in 20 ...
. Descending to the southwest onto the playa in the north end of Animas Valley the cutoff route passed to the west through Stein's Pass, then southwest of its mouth to the Cienega of San Simon on the San Simon River. The cutoff then ran west through Puerto del Dado, from there it crossed the middle Sulphur Springs Valley and
Willcox Playa The Willcox Playa is a large endorheic dry lake or sink (playa) adjacent to Willcox, Arizona in Cochise County, in the southeast corner of the state. It is part of the Sonoran Desert ecoregion and is the remnant of a Pleistocene era pluvial Lak ...
to Croton Springs. From there it ran to Nugent’s Pass, down Tres Alamos Wash to the lower crossing of the San Pedro River near Tres Alamos. From Tres Alamos the route led southwest to a waterhole on Cooke's Wagon Road on Mescal Arroyo (just west of modern Mescal) where it linked up again with Cooke's route to
Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...
.Robert Eccleston, ''Overland to California on the Southwestern Trail 1849'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1950, pp. 174–93


History

The Tucson Cutoff, also called variously "Puerto del Dado" Trail, Nugent's Wagon Road, later Apache Pass Trail, was long traveled by Spanish and Mexican soldiers and other travelers prior to 1830. It was first traveled by American fur trappers in the 1830s and was known but not used by Cooke for his wagon road. It became known to westward bound American travelers after it was first traveled by a party of 49ers led by
John Coffee Hays John Coffee "Jack" Hays (January 28, 1817 – April 21, 1883) was an American military officer. A captain in the Texas Rangers and a military officer of the Republic of Texas, Hays served in several armed conflicts from 1836 to 1848, including a ...
in 1849. Notes about the Hays expedition aided the mapping of the route, lent to the commander of the Railroad Survey Expedition, by one of its members, John Nugent. In consequence the route was sometimes called Nugent's Wagon Road and also Nugent’s Pass and Nugent’s Springs on the route were given his name. In the later 1850s the route of the stagecoach routes of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and
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 ...
, diverted from the Tucson Cutoff route, to a shorter route, found by the Railroad Survey Expedition, across the Sulphur Spring Valley via Ewell Spring, south of Wilcox Playa, to Dragoon Springs, in Dragoon Pass. It then ran down Dragoon Wash to the San Pedro River, then down river to the middle crossing of the San Pedro River (below the rail and highway bridges of modern
Benson Benson may refer to: Animals *Benson (fish), largest common carp caught in Britain Places Geography Canada *Rural Municipality of Benson No. 35, Saskatchewan; rural municipality *Benson, Saskatchewan; hamlet United Kingdom * Benson, Oxfordshire ...
and south of Pomerene). However the Tucson Cutoff, better watered, continued in use as a wagon route between the San Pedro River and the Sulphur Springs Valley for decades afterward. Richard J. Hinton, The Handbook to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, and Scenery, Payot, Upham & Company, San Francisco, 1878, pp. xix–xx, xxxi
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References

{{coord, 32.3103, -108.6110, display=title Geography of Hidalgo County, New Mexico Geography of Cochise County, Arizona Trails and roads in the American Old West Pre-statehood history of Arizona Historic trails and roads in Arizona Pre-statehood history of New Mexico Historic trails and roads in New Mexico