Croton Springs, formerly Nugent's Springs, are springs, in the Sulphur Springs Valley. It lies at an elevation of 4147 feet, located on the northwest edge of the Willcox Playa in

Cochise County, Arizona Cochise County () is a county in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. It is named after the Native American chief Cochise. The population was 125,447 at the 2020 census. The county seat is Bisbee and the most populous city ...

History

Croton Springs were historical watering places on several wagon roads through the Sulphur Springs Valley. It was a watering place from 1849 on the Tucson Cutoff between

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 Coo ...

in the

Animas Valley The Animas Valley is a lengthy and narrow, north–south long, valley located in western Hidalgo County, New Mexico in the Bootheel Region; the extreme south of the valley lies in Sonora-Chihuahua, in the extreme northwest of the Chihuahuan D ...

and the waterhole on that road near Mescal, Arizona. That cutoff passed through

Stein's Pass Stein's Pass, is a gap or mountain pass through the Peloncillo Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The pass was named after United States Army Major Enoch Steen, who camped nearby in 1856, as he explored the recently acquired Gadsden Purchas ...

, Apache Pass, to Croton Springs across the Sulphur Springs Valley and Willcox Playa to the springs. From there it passed through

Nugent’s Pass Nugents Pass or Nugent's Pass is a gap at an elevation of in Cochise County, Arizona. The pass was named for John Nugent, who provided notes of his journey with a party of Forty-Niners across what became the Tucson Cutoff to Lt. John G. Par ...

to the Lower Crossing of the San Pedro River below Tres Alamos and on the waterhole on Cooke's Wagon Road that had turned west 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 ...

. Following the 1855 Railroad Survey expedition the spring was for a time called Nugent's Springs after John Nugent who gave his notes of the first journey across the Tucson Cutoff to aid the expedition. By 1878 Croton Springs was 82 miles southeast of

Fort Grant Fort Amador ( es, Fuerte Amador) and Fort Grant were former United States Army bases built to protect the Pacific (southern) end of the Panama Canal at Panama Bay. Amador was the primary on-land site, lying below the Bridge of the Americas. Gra ...

, 16 miles northeast of the Tucson- Fort Bowie- Dragoon Springs road crossing, (Fort Bowie was 37 miles east of this crossing, Tucson 65 miles west, Dragoon Springs 3 miles west southwest) and 71 miles southwest from Camp Goodwin. 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
/ref> Pumping water from the ground in the valley for irrigation has subsequently lowered the water-table in the valley, to the point where the springs no longer flow.

References

{{coord, 32, 09, 46, N, 109, 56, 02, W, display=title, source:GNIS Bodies of water of Cochise County, Arizona Springs of Arizona American frontier