| The
long valley running north-south between the Chiricahuas and the Dragoons
is named for a spring that no longer exists. Sulphur Springs was
a reliable source of water for native peoples even in prehistoric times.
For the Apache people, it was no less important, and it soon became as
well known to Anglos as their incursions increased. The valley was
at the time luxurious with natural grasses and well populated with trees.
A stage stop (not the Butterfied Line, which by-passed it in favor of Dragoon
Springs as it was more in line with the next water at Apache Pass) existed
there in 1872 when Thomas Jeffords brought General Howard to confer with
Cochise. Once the peace treaty came into existence, the tiny building
on that spot was leased from two local merchants by the U.S. Army and it
became the first, pitifully inadequate Chiricahua agency building, staffed
by Tom Jeffords and an assistant named Fred Hughes. Eventually, when
the agency was moved to more comfortable quarters in the San Simon Valley,
the building's ownership reverted back to the original purveyors, Rogers
and Spence -- characters who would soon by their violent deaths at the
hands of drunken Apaches figure prominently in frontier history by supplying
the government with a convenient excuse to dissolve Cochise's reservation.
By the 1880s this
location had become the heart of another landmark, the Sulphur Springs
Ranch, which found its own place in history when it was chosen by Britton
Davis as the first stop on his way back to the San Carlos Reservation,
with the renegade Geronimo in tow. |
| LOOKING
EASTWARD INTO SULPHUR SPRINGS VALLEY FROM MIDDLEMARCH PASS IN THE DRAGOON
MOUNTAINS. GENERAL HOWARD'S PARTY WOULD HAVE SEEN THIS EXACT VIEW
ON THEIR WAY ACROSS THE DRAGOONS ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 30, 1872.
A SHORT STRETCH OF MIDDLEMARCH ROAD IS VISIBLE HERE. THIS ALMOST
CERTAINLY FOLLOWS THE SAME PATH AS THE ORIGINAL ROUTE TAKEN BY THE PARTY. |
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