Guadalupe Pass is a
mountain pass located in the
Guadalupe Mountains
The Guadalupe Mountains ( es, Sierra de Guadalupe) are a mountain range located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The range includes the highest summit in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, , and the "signature peak" of West Texas, El Capitan, both ...
of
Hidalgo County, New Mexico
Hidalgo County ( es, Condado de Hidalgo) is the southernmost county of the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 4,894. The county seat and largest city is Lordsburg. A bill creating Hidalgo from the southern part ...
. It lies at an elevation of 5075 feet or 1547 m.
History
Guadalupe Pass was used first by the Spanish and then by the Mexicans for
Janos -
Fronteras
Fronteras is the seat of Fronteras Municipality in the northeastern part of the Mexican state of Sonora. Frontera translates as Border. The elevation is 1,120 meters and neighboring municipalities are Agua Prieta, Nacozari and Bacoachi. The ar ...
Road between
Chihuahua and Fronteras,
Sonora from the late 17th century. In 1846, American soldiers 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 ...
led by
Philip St. George Cooke used the pass and the old road for the route of
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 ...
between the pass and the
San Pedro River. This road was heavily used by the 49ers during the
California Gold Rush. It was soon after replaced by a more direct route, the
Tucson Cutoff
The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the Southern Emigrant Trail. It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel John Coffee Hays followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorte ...
to the north.
[Leland J. Hanchett, Crossing Arizona, Pine Rim Publishing, Cave Creek, AZ, 2002, p.193]
References
External links
John Russell Bartlet, Guadalupe Pass, on Cooke’s Road—Sonora, August 4, 1852, sepia and wash on beige paperfrom jcb.lunaimaging.com, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.
Landforms of Hidalgo County, New Mexico
Mountain passes of New Mexico
Transportation in Hidalgo County, New Mexico
Cooke's Wagon Road
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