Cooke's Pass, also known as Massacre Canyon, is a narrow gap running east and west through the Cookes Range In Luna County,

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Its apex is a saddle, at an elevation of about 5100 feet between Fryingpan Canyon on the west and the narrow upper part of Cooke's Canyon west of Cooke's Spring. Cooke's Pass is just north of Massacre Peak.

History

The

Southern Emigrant Trail :''The Southern Emigrant Trail should not be confused with the Applegate Trail, which is part of the Emigrant Trail, Northern Emigrant Trails.'' The Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, the Southern Trail and ...

passed through Cooke's Pass and it was also the route of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line,

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service in ...

, and other stagecoach lines. Its nickname Massacre Canyon dates from the time of the

Apache Wars The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the Southwestern United States, southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as l ...

following the Bascom Affair when the

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

, formerly friendly to the Americans and the stage company destroyed most of the stations and many coaches and killed many of the station staff, drivers and passengers. Thereafter Cooke's Pass was a favored location for ambushes and it acquired the name ''Massacre Canyon'' after many incidents like the

Battle of Cookes Canyon The Battle of Cookes Canyon was a military engagement fought between settlers from Confederate Arizona and Chiricahua Apaches in August 1861. It occurred about northwest of Mesilla, in Cookes Canyon. The exact date of the battle is unknown ...

. Near the end of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, Fort Cummings was established near Cooke's Spring and stage station to protect travelers along the stage route here. William Thornton Parker, Annals of old Fort Cummings, New Mexico, 1867-8, Published by Author, Northampton, Mass., 1916.
/ref>

References

History of Luna County, New Mexico Landforms of Luna County, New Mexico Mountain passes of New Mexico American frontier San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line Butterfield Overland Mail Stagecoach stops in the United States {{NewMexico-geo-stub