The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the Southern Emigrant Trail . It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel John Coffee Hays followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorter route than Cooke's Wagon Road which passed farther south to cross the mountains to the San Pedro River at Guadalupe Pass .
10-588: The Tucson Cutoff ran from Ojo de Ynez on Cooke's Wagon Road on the southeast side of the Big Burro Mountains to the southwest to a spring and through a pass in the Pyramid Mountains south of today's Lordsburg . Descending to the southwest onto the playa in the north end of Animas Valley the cutoff route passed to the west through Stein's Pass , then southwest of its mouth to the Cienega of San Simon on
20-561: A river in New Mexico is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Soldiers Farewell Hill Soldiers Farewell Hill , a summit at an elevation of 6135 feet, in the Big Burro Mountains , in Grant County, New Mexico . Soldiers Farewell Hill lies south of the Burro Cienega . It marked the site of Ojo Ynez, a watering place nearby the old road between Janos, Chihuahua and
30-737: A shorter route, found by the Railroad Survey Expedition, across the Sulphur Spring Valley via Ewell Spring, south of Wilcox Playa, to Dragoon Springs , in Dragoon Pass . It then ran down Dragoon Wash to the San Pedro River, then down river to the middle crossing of the San Pedro River (below the rail and highway bridges of modern Benson and south of Pomerene ). However the Tucson Cutoff, better watered, continued in use as
40-493: A wagon route between the San Pedro River and the Sulphur Springs Valley for decades afterward. 32°18′37″N 108°36′40″W / 32.3103°N 108.6110°W / 32.3103; -108.6110 Burro Cienega Burro Cienega is a stream that arises at an elevation of 5990 feet, at 32°28′48″N 108°27′05″W / 32.48000°N 108.45139°W / 32.48000; -108.45139 , in
50-606: The Big Burro Mountains in Grant County, New Mexico . Its mouth is at 4196 feet at a playa about 5.5 miles southeast of Lordsburg in Hidalgo County, New Mexico . Ojo Ynez, a spring , and watering place on the old road from Janos, Chihuahua , to the Santa Rita copper mines was located in the valley of the Burro Cienega two miles upstream from where the road crossed the stream just northeast of Soldiers Farewell Hill . It
60-723: The San Simon River . The cutoff then ran west through Puerto del Dado , from there it crossed the middle Sulphur Springs Valley and Willcox Playa to Croton Springs . From there it ran 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 Arroyo (just west of modern Mescal ) where it linked up again with Cooke's route to Tucson . The Tucson Cutoff, also called variously "Puerto del Dado" Trail , Nugent's Wagon Road , later Apache Pass Trail ,
70-634: The Santa Rita copper mines , later used by Cooke's Wagon Road and the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line . This summit lies over 2 miles east of the site of the Soldier's Farewell Stage Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail . An apocryphal explanation of the romantic name (and the most widely accepted) is that soldiers escorting wagon trains en route to California were ordered to go no further than this location, where they bid
80-407: The commander of the Railroad Survey Expedition, by one of its members, John Nugent . In consequence the route was sometimes called Nugent's Wagon Road and also Nugent’s Pass and Nugent’s Springs on the route were given his name. 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 Tucson Cutoff route, to
90-458: Was long traveled by Spanish and Mexican soldiers and other travelers prior to 1830. It was first traveled by American fur trappers in the 1830s and was known but not used by Cooke for his wagon road. It became known to westward bound American travelers after it was first traveled by a party of 49ers led by John Coffee Hays in 1849. Notes about the Hays expedition aided the mapping of the route, lent to
100-508: Was subsequently a watering place on Cooke's Wagon Road and the route of the San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line , 10 miles southwest of Ojo de Vaca (Cow Spring) and 2 miles northeast of the later Soldier's Farewell Stage Station on the route of the Butterfield Overland Mail . 32°18′28″N 108°37′23″W / 32.30778°N 108.62306°W / 32.30778; -108.62306 This article related to
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