Nugents Pass or Nugent's Pass is a gap at an elevation of in

Cochise County 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 is ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. The

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits *Mountain pass, a lower place in a mountai ...

was named for John Nugent, who provided notes of his journey with a party of Forty-Niners across what became 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 Lt.

John G. Parke John Grubb Parke (September 22, 1827 – December 16, 1900) was a United States Army engineer and a Union general in the American Civil War. Parke's Civil War service was closely associated with Ambrose E. Burnside, often serving him as chi ...

, on expedition to identify a feasible railroad route from the Pima Villages to the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

History

Nugent's Pass was an early alternate route of the Southern Emigrant Trail, called variously the Tucson Cutoff or "Puerto del Dado" Trail (later

Apache Pass Apache Pass, also known by its earlier Spanish name Puerto del Dado ("Pass of the Die"), is a historic mountain pass in the U.S. state of Arizona between the Dos Cabezas Mountains and Chiricahua Mountains at an elevation of . It is approximately ...

Trail). Long traveled by Spanish and Mexican soldiers and other early explorers, its first American travelers were likely fur trappers. The route became known to westward-bound American emigrants after it was traveled by a party of Forty-Niners led by John Coffee Hays in 1849. The Tucson Cutoff ran from

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 ...

on the east side of 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 De ...

west 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 ...

to the cienega on the nearby San Simon River; through Puerto del Dado to Dos Cabezas Spring; across the

Sulphur Springs Valley The Sulphur Springs Valley is a valley in the eastern half of Cochise County, Arizona. The valley covers an approximated vertical rectangle west of the Chiricahua Mountains–Dos Cabezas Mountains complex. The Sulphur Springs Valley is the larg ...

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 ...

Croton Springs 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. History Croton Springs were historical w ...

; through Nugent's Pass; down

Tres Alamos Wash Tres Alamos Wash, an ephemeral stream tributary to the San Pedro River, in Cochise County, Arizona. It runs southwesterly to meet the San Pedro River, across the river from the former settlement of Tres Alamos, Arizona. Tres Alamos Wash passes ...

to the lower crossing of the San Pedro River near Tres Alamos; and finally southwest from Tres Alamos to a waterhole on Cooke's Wagon Road on Mescal Wash (just west of modern Mescal), where it linked up again with Cooke's route to Tucson. In the later 1850s, the stagecoach routes of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and Butterfield Overland Mail diverted from the Nugent's Pass route at Dos Cabezas Spring to a shorter route south of Willcox Playa, through

Dragoon Pass Dragoon Pass is a gap between the Dragoon Mountains and Little Dragoon Mountains The Little Dragoon Mountains, are included in the Douglas Ranger District of Coronado National Forest, in Cochise County, Arizona. The summit of the range is the c ...

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, Nugent's Pass remained in use as a wagon route between the San Pedro River and the Sulphur Springs Valley for many decades afterward.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nugent's Pass Landforms of Cochise County, Arizona Mountain passes of Arizona American frontier