November 28, 2000
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Site Highlights:
Off the beaten track
1.5 mile hike to site
Few visitors
Splendid isolation
Panoramic views
Many adobe ruins
Butterfield Trail
Visitor Center
| Guardian of Apache Pass |
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For more than 20 years Fort Bowie and Apache Pass were focal points of military operations by the U.S. Army against the Chiricahua Apaches for control of the region.
This bitter struggle, which ended only with the surrender of Geronimo in 1886, helped to determine the pattern of development on America's southwestern frontier during the last half of the 19th century. The Spaniards called it Puerto del Dado, the Pass of Chance. They might better have named it Puerto de la Muerte, the Pass of Death, due to the violence that swirled around it. Because the springs there were an unfailing source of water, Apache Pass - separating the Chiricahua and Dos Cabezas mountains - drew a long procession of emigrants, prospectors, and soldiers into this homeland of the Apache. It was also the scene of two engagements with Cochise’s Apache warriors - the Bascom Affair of 1861 and the Battle of Apache Pass, fought July 15-16, 1862, during which a Union army under Brig. Gen. James Carleton was ambushed while an route to confront Confederate troops in Arizona and New Mexico. The Battle of Apache Pass led to the establishment of Fort Bowie to protect both the pass and Apache Spring. Soldiers from the 5th California Volunteer Infantry began its construction on July 28,1862, on a hill overlooking the spring. It was named for the regiment's commanding officer, Col. George Washington Bowie. Completed in less than three weeks, the fort was more of a temporary camp than a permanent military post - 13 tent surrounded by irregular stone breastworks thrown up at key positions on top of the hill. |
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| As winter approached, the tents were replaced by a collection of crude stone and adobe huts, which one officer called "mere hovels ... through which the rain passes very much as it would through a sieve." In 1868 a less primitive Fort Bowie was established on a plateau about 300 yards to the southeast.
After Cochise died of natural causes in 1874, Indian agent Tom Jeffords tried to maintain order, but young Apaches grew discontented with conditions on the reservation and escaped, adding to the growing distrust between Indians and settlers.
During the next ten years, most of these "renegades" would be captured and returned to San Carlos. Faced with the reservation's restraints and deplorable conditions, however, many would escape again, some more than once. The last outbreak occurred in May 1885 when Geronimo led 134 Chiricahuas back into Mexico. They were pursued by soldiers and Apache scouts commanded first by Brig. Gen. George Crook and then by Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles. After their final surrender in September 1886, Geronimo and his remaining followers were brought to Fort Bowie. There they were assembled on the parade ground and taken by wagons to the rail-road for the long journey to exile in Florida. Geronimo's defeat ended both the Apache Wars and Fort Bowie's usefulness as a military installation. The fort, however, remained an active post for another eight years. It was finally closed on October 17,1894, when the last troops were withdrawn.
In January 1861 a band of Apaches raided the ranch of John Ward, stole some stock, and kidnapped the son of a Mexican woman who lived with Ward. Ward wrongly believed that Cochise and his Chiricahuas were responsible and demanded that the military authorities confront the Apache leader, recover his stock, and secure the return of the boy.
In February, the Army responded by sending Lt. George Bascom and 54 men into Apache Pass. After setting up camp about a mile from the Butterfield stage station, Bascom lured Cochise into his tent and threatened to hold him hostage until Ward's property and the boy were returned. Furious and insulted, Cochise slashed through the wall of the tent and eluded the cordon of soldiers stationed outside.
Sporadic fighting between Cochise's warriors and Army troops bloodied Apache Pass for the next two weeks and marked the beginning of open warfare that raged intermittently between whites and Apaches for the next ten years.
"Remember, boys, nothing on God's earth must stop the United States mail!"
That's what John Butterfield told his Overland Mail stage drivers when he inaugurated his semi-weekly, 24-day mail service to California on September 15, 1858. Butterfield's Overland Mail Company began operation with about 2,000 employees, more than 250 coaches and several hundred wagons, 1,800 horses and mules, and 240 stage stations spaced along its 2,800-mile route.
The U.S. Government paid the company $600,000 per year for carrying the mail. The Overland Mail route (map) began at Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis, Mo., joined at Fort Smith, Ark., then went to El Paso, Tex., across southern New Mexico and Arizona to Fort Yuma, and up California's central valley to San Francisco.
In its three-year history, the Overland Mail was attacked only once by Apaches and was late reaching the end of the line only three times.
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| Fort Bowie Signage |
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Valley without a Name){kind=small}
Post Cemetery){kind=small}
Apache Spring){kind=small}
Battle of Apache Pass){kind=small}
Butterfield Overland Mail){kind=small}
Indian Agency){kind=small}
Plant Harvest){kind=small}
Sutlers Post){kind=small}
Cavalry Barracks){kind=small}
Commanding Officers Quarters){kind=small}
Infantry Barracks){kind=small}
New Hospital){kind=small}
School){kind=link}
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| Site Gallery - The Abandoned Fort |
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"When I was young I walked all over this country and saw no other people than the Apaches." ... Cochise |
| For More Information |
| Fort Bowie National Historic Site (National Park Service) City of Willcox, Arizona The Complete Guide to Willcox Arizona |