Stein's Pass, is a gap or

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...

through the Peloncillo Mountains 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 ...

. The pass was named after

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

Enoch Steen Enoch Steen (February 22, 1800 – January 22, 1880) was a United States military officer and western explorer. He joined the United States Army in 1832, serving at posts throughout the United States, including many remote locations in the w ...

, who camped nearby in 1856, as he explored the recently acquired

Gadsden Purchase The Gadsden Purchase ( es, region=MX, la Venta de La Mesilla "The Sale of La Mesilla") is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effe ...

.Julyan, Robert Hixson (1998), ''The place names of New Mexico'' (2nd ed.) University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM, pp.341-342, The pass is in the form of a canyon cut through the mountains through which Steins Creek flows to the west just west of the apex of the pass to the canyon mouth at .

History

Stein's Pass and the canyon of Steins Creek to the west of it, allowed easy passage through the Peloncillo Mountains, between 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 ...

and the

San Simon Valley The San Simon Valley is a broad valley east of the Chiricahua Mountains, in the northeast corner of Cochise County, Arizona and southeastern Graham County, Arizona, Graham County, with a small portion near Antelope Pass in Hidalgo County, New Mex ...

. Americans headed west in the

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

, in 1849 pioneered a shorter wagon road through the pass as part of a cutoff route 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 ...

from Santa Fe to Tucson and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The pass, then in Mexican territory, was known to Mexican Army soldiers who guided a party of forty-niners led by John Coffee Hays west from Peloncillo Ranch on Cooke's road in the

, through this pass, to Cienega of San Simon and on over

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 ...

and Nugent’s Pass to the lower crossing of San Pedro River, near Tres Alamos from which it ran southwest to link back up to Cooke,s Road west of modern

Benson, Arizona Benson is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, Cochise County, Arizona, United States, east-southeast of Tucson, Arizona, Tucson. It was founded as a rail terminal for the area, and still serves as such. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 c ...

, avoiding the long haul south to Guadalupe Pass, (in what is now

Sonora, Mexico Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...

just south of the modern Mexican, U. S. border), and back north along the San Pedro River to the vicinity west of Benson. Subsequently, this became the major route of travel on this part of the Southern Emigrant Trail, and was used by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, with the exception that Nugent's Pass was discarded in favor of

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 ...

as the shorter route to the San Pedro River crossing. A shorter route through

Doubtful Canyon Doubtful Canyon was the name of two canyons in the Peloncillo Mountains, once considered in the 19th century as one canyon that served as the pass through those mountains. Today the canyon bearing the name Doubtful Canyon, is mostly in Cochis ...

used by the Butterfield Overland Mail supplanted this pass for the stagecoach route until the outbreak of the Apache War with Cochise made it unsafe and the Steins Pass route again became the route of choice for many years. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. L (Part I), United States. War Dept, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897, p.121
/ref> Stein's Pass became the route the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

used in crossing the Peloncillo Mountains, and the station, later the town of Stein's Pass was founded just east of the summit of the pass. Today the route of

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...

, goes through Stein's Pass.

References

Landforms of Hidalgo County, New Mexico Mountain passes of New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub