The Whitlock Valley is a small valley in southeast

Graham County, Arizona Graham County is a county in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 38,533, making it the third-least populous county in Arizona. The county seat is Safford. Graham County composes the ...

southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

, lying between three mountain ranges. The valley lies on the south perimeter region of the White Mountains in eastern Arizona, and lies south of the west-flowing

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of n ...

, and the region transitions south into

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 ...

and three large valleys, with some scattered

dry lake A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceeds recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline c ...

s. The valley is

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

, with a small dry lake called Parks Lake, and merges southwest into the north of the San Simon Valley, where the San Simon River has its origins in the flatlands, and surrounding perimeter mountains. The valley was named after

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

James H. Whitlock who commanded during the

Battle of Mount Gray The Battle of Mount Gray was an engagement of the Apache Wars fought at the foothills of Gray Mountain (then known as Mount Gray) on April 7, 1864. A troop of the United States Army's California Column attacked a superior force of Chiricahua ...

in 1864 which was fought near the valley.

Description

Regional endorheic valley

The west-flowing Gila River is forced into a NW-West-SW excursion by the small range of the

Black Hills (Greenlee County) The Black Hills of Greenlee County are a 20 mi (32 km) long mountain range of the extreme northeast Sonoran Desert bordering the south of the White Mountains of eastern Arizona's transition zone. The mountain range is bordered by the ...

. The Whitlock Valley drains south from the range, and merges into the north of the San Simon Valley, where the San Simon River forms a playa, flatland region, then continues northwest to the Gila River. A

water divide A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a singl ...

creates Parks Lake at the south of the Whitlock Valley.

Whitlock Valley

Whitlock Valley is a mostly north–south 22-mile (35 km) long valley, bordered on the west by the small north–south

Whitlock Mountains Whitlock may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Whitlock, Tennessee, United States, an unincorporated community * Whitlock Valley, Arizona, United States * Whitlock Island, Western Australia * Whitlock, original name of Bay Terrace station, a railway s ...

. The east of the valley is bordered by the north region of the

Peloncillo Mountains (Cochise County) The Peloncillo Mountains of Cochise County (Spanish language ''pelo'', hair, ''pelon'', hairless, bald; ''peloncillo'', Little Baldy) is a mountain range in northeast Cochise County, Arizona. A northern north–south stretch of the range extends ...

, a north–south stretch, only about 8 mi wide. The north Peloncillos form the border between Graham County, northwest, and Greenlee County to the east, (extreme southeast county).

Parks Lake and Whitlock Cienega

Parks Lake is the low point of Whitlock Valley in the south. The southern Whitlock Mountains are to the west, and on the southeast foothills of the Whitlocks lie Whitlock Cienega, at . In the Parks Lake region, can be found a

sedge The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' wit ...

, '' Scirpus pungens'', (''

Schoenoplectus pungens ''Schoenoplectus pungens'' is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known as common threesquare, common three-square bulrush and sharp club-rush. It is a herbaceous emergent plant that is widespread across much of North and South Am ...

''), as well as other lakebed, and marsh plants. Parks Lake is located at .Parks Lake, Graham County, trails.com
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Madrean Sky Islands region

The valley lies in a region of southeast

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 ...

and southwest

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

called the

Madrean Sky Islands The Madrean Sky Islands are enclaves of Madrean pine–oak woodlands, found at higher elevations in a complex of small mountain ranges in southern and southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico. The sky islands are s ...

; the valley is a northeast drainage to 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 ...

, but only in the Whitlock Valley southern region, and the neighboring mountains east and west. The south of the valley forms a water divide to the northeast region of San Simon Creek.

References

External links

Whitlock Cienega
Whitlock Cienega (coordinates), with San Simon Creek watershed, San Simon Valley, and Peloncillo Mountains
---- Parks Lake
University of Arizona Herbarium, ''Scirpus pungens''.

!--Elevation, 3510 ft, msl, coordinates, 32.5678-N, 109.3031-W--> ----

{{- Endorheic basins of the United States Valleys of Arizona Landforms of Graham County, Arizona