Nugent’s Pass

Nugents Pass

The pass is located in Cochise County

Elevation 4,593 ft (1,400 m)[1]
Location  Arizona
 United States
Coordinates 32°11′00″N 110°06′02″W / 32.1834091°N 110.1006262°WCoordinates: 32°11′00″N 110°06′02″W / 32.1834091°N 110.1006262°W
Topo map USGS Steele Hills

Nugents Pass or Nugent's Pass a gap at an elevation of 4593 feet, in Cochise County, Arizona. Nugent's Pass was named for John Nugent who gave his notes of the journey his party of Forty Niners took across what became the Tucson Cutoff to aid Lt. John G. Parke in his expedition to find a railroad route from the Pima Villages to the Rio Grande.[2]

History

Nugent's Pass was along the route of an early alternate route of the Southern Emigrant Trail, called variously the Tucson Cutoff or "Puerto del Dado" Trail, later Apache Pass Trail. Long traveled by Spanish and Mexican soldiers and other travelers, it was first traveled by American fur trappers. It became known to westward bound American travelers after it was traveled over by a party of Forty Niners led by John Coffee Hays in 1849.

The Tucson Cutoff ran from Cooke's Wagon Road on the east side of the Animas Valley west through Stein's Pass to the cienega nearby on the San Simon River, through Puerto del Dado, to Dos Cabezas Spring, across the Sulphur Springs Valley and Willcox Playa to Croton Springs, to Nugent's Pass, down Tres Alamos Wash to the lower crossing of the San Pedro River near Tres Alamos. From Tres Alamos the route led southwest 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.[3][4][5]

In the later 1850s the route of 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 Wilcox Playa, through Dragoon Pass to the middle crossing of the San Pedro River (below the rail and highway bridges of modern Benson and south of Pomerene). However Nugent's Pass continued in use as a wagon route between the San Pedro River and the Sulpher Springs Valley for decades afterward.[6][7][8][9]

References

  1. ↑ "Nugents Pass". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  2. ↑ REPORT OF CAPTAIN A. A. HUMPHREYS, TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS, Upon the progress of the Pacific Railroad Expeditions and Surveys, Report of the Secretary of War, Dec. 1, 1856, Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the third session of the 34th Congress, 34th Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No.1, Vol. II, Cornelius Wendell, Washington, 1856, pp.206-209
  3. ↑ John P. Wilson, Peoples of the Middle Gila: a Documentary History of the Pimas and Maricopas, 1500's - 1945, Researched and Written for the Gila River Indian Community, Sacaton, Arizona, 1999, p. 111
  4. ↑ Robert Eccleston, Overland to California on the Southwestern Trail 1849, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1950, pp. 174-193
  5. ↑ Richard J. Hinton, The Handbook to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, and Scenery, Payot, Upham & Company, 1878 pp. xix-xx, xxxi
  6. ↑ Table of distances from Texas Almanac, 1859, Book, ca. 1859; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123765/ accessed November 12, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association, Denton, Texas
  7. ↑ List of Stations from New York Times, October 14 1858, Itinerary of the Route
  8. ↑ Trapp, Edward, Military Map of Arizona, Engineer Office, Military Division of the Pacific, 1869, from the Sharlot Hall Museum Map Collection, Arizona Memory Project at azmemory.azlibrary.gov accessed Feb. 18, 2014
  9. ↑ Richard J. Hinton, The Handbook to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, and Scenery, Payot, Upham & Company, San Francisco, 1878, pp.xix-xx, xxxi