Cooke's Spring Station, located near Cooke's Spring, New Mexico was a 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 ...

stage route from 1858 to 1861 and of subsequent stage lines until made obsolete by the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

. Cooke's Spring was located at the eastern mouth of Cooke's Canyon, part of

Cooke's Pass 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 ...

a narrow gap in the Mimbres Mountains running east and west. Cooke's Spring was named for Philip St. George Cooke, 2nd U.S. Dragoons, the former commander of the

Mormon Battalion The Mormon Battalion was the only religious unit in United States military history in federal service, recruited solely from one religious body and having a religious title as the unit designation. The volunteers served from July 1846 to July ...

, that was exploring this area of New Mexico in 1853. It was the only large supply of fresh water between

Mesilla, New Mexico Mesilla (also known as La Mesilla and Old Mesilla) is a town in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 2,196 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Las Cruces Metropolitan Statistical Area. During the Civil War, Mesill ...

and the

Mimbres River The Mimbres is a river in southwestern New Mexico. Course The Mimbres forms from snowpack and runoff on the southwestern slopes of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in the Black Range at in Grant County. The river ends in the Guzmán Basin, a smal ...

for wagon trains heading to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

as well as the later Butterfield Overland Mail Stage. The Cooke's Spring Stage Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage route was located near Cooke's Springs from 1858 to 1861. Between 1848 and 1861 the pass was a dangerous place. Travelers were occasionally ambushed and killed by the Apache as they passed through it. However following the Bascom Affair things were even worse until the end of the

Apache Wars The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. After the Mexi ...

as the Apache, formerly friendly to the Americans and the stage company destroyed most of the stations and destroyed many coaches and killed their passengers. Thereafter Cooke's Pass was a favored location for these ambushes and it acquired the name ''Massacre Canyon'' after many incidents like the Battle of Cookes Canyon. Near the end of the Civil War

Fort Cummings 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. Cooke's Spring Cooke's Spring () was named for Philip St. George Cooke 2nd U.S. Drago ...

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. William Thornton Parker, Annals of old Fort Cummings, New Mexico, 1867-8, Published by Author, Northampton, Mass., 1916.
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References

{{Butterfield4 History of Luna County, New Mexico Geography of Luna County, New Mexico Butterfield Overland Mail in New Mexico Territory American frontier San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line 1858 establishments in New Mexico Territory Stagecoach stations in New Mexico