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Published: March 18th 2013
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FORT COBRE
From Silver City take Hwy 15 north towards Gila Cliff Dwellings for about 6 miles. Bear left into the old part of Pinos Altos for 0.15 miles. The fort will be your right. Spend some time in that heroic old community. PINOS ALTOS
Placer gold was found at Pinos Altos a few miles north of Silver City, NM in 1860. A small gold boom quickly followed and dozens of miners rushed in to stake their claims. One of them was a young man named Thomas J. Mastin. Tom was well liked among the miners and became a leader of them. Roy Bean, and his brother Sam, operated a store there. Roy would later move to Texas, appoint himself justice of the peace at Langtry and set himself up as “The Law West of the Pecos”. The problem with the gold strike at Pinos Altos was that it was located on land that the Apaches called home. The Apache leader was an imposing figure named Mangas Coloradas. It was a name given him by Mexican enemies that meant “Bloody Sleeves”. He was fierce man and just as greatly respected among his people as he was feared by his enemies. Cochise was his son-in-law. In the fall of 1860 Mangas was mostly, but not quite, living at peace with white America, as was Cochise. One day Mangas made a visit to Pinos Altos by himself to advise the miners
SPRING CANYON
From Motel Drive in Deming take Hwy 549 eastward about 6.75 miles to Hwy 143. Turn right on Hwy 143 and follow the signs to Spring Canyon State Park. Fine place for a picnic, but it is a fee area. that they were trespassing in his domain. The miners got the drop on him, tied him to a tree, and horse-whipped him. That set him on the warpath and depredations against the miners in Pinos Altos began in earnest. Mangas attacked the miners often and hard, and they became adept Indian fighters at a time that coincided with the outbreak of the War Between the States. By August of 1861 the army had abandoned Arizona, destroyed their stores and burnt their forts. When the army left they took with them the livelihood of many settlers. Among them were William Wadsworth and Grundy Ake who abandoned their neighboring farms along Sonoita Creek, took their families first to Tubac for safety, and then to Tucson when Apache depredations by Cochise forced the abandonment also of Tubac. Cochise had pretty much clamped the lid down on any hopes for prosperity in Arizona so Wadsworth and Ake decided to join forces in a move back to Texas. The two families had only been on Sonoita Creek since 1857 but that was long enough for them to have accumulated several hundred head of cattle, sheep and goats. They hired a few drovers to manage the
COOKE'S CANYON
The ambush took place in the small canyon in the background to the left herds loaded themselves into some wagons and off they went. Cochise by then had joined Mangas in an effort to drive the hated miners out of Pinos Altos. Cochise favored resting awhile in Mexico but there was an outbreak of smallpox that drove him back into Arizona. The Apaches figured to starve the miners out by cutting them off from supplies coming up from Mesilla. The route from Mesilla to Pinos Altos followed the old Butterfield Trail through Cooke’s Canyon and on to the Mimbres River Crossing at Mowry City. There was a reliable spring at the east end of the canyon the Mimbres River fed the west side but the canyon was perfect for ambush. Many travelers met a gruesome fate in Cooke’s Canyon. The miners had pretty much given up attempts at mining and had organized themselves into a small local militia called the Arizona Guards and had joined the Confederacy. They were charged with the responsibility of keeping the trail open and protecting the settlements at Mowry City and Santa Rita but they still lived at Pinos Altos. When the Wadsworth-Ake party arrived at Mowry City they learned of recent Apache danger in the canyon to the east. They chose to ignore the warning thinking that they were a strong enough party to avoid trouble. Sure enough as soon as they entered the canyon they were ambushed and routed with heavy casualties including Wadsworth and Kit Carson’s half-brother, Moses. The whole party would have been quickly wiped out except they managed to retreat back to Mowry City while the Apaches were busily pillaging their wagons and driving off their entire herd. Mastin and the Guards arrived at Mowry City shortly after the survivors struggled in. Mastin listened to the tales of horror, sent out a party to attend to the deceased, and rode off to recover the stolen herd. Mastin figured that the herd would be taken to Mexico and knew where the sources of water were located along the way. He hurried off to Spring Canyon in the Florida Mountains just south of where Deming would later be built and arrived just before the Apaches got there with the slow moving herd. In a sharp engagement the Guards scattered the Apaches and returned the stolen herd to Mowry City. The sheep were found up a side canyon near the ambush site still being held by the herd dog. Colonel Baylor sent some Confederate soldiers with much needed provisions to relieve Pinos Altos and Mimbres settlements and they escorted the survivors to safety in Mesilla. On September 28, 1861 Tom Mastin suffered a mortal wound during another full scale attack on Pinos Altos. Mangas himself was also wounded, perhaps in the same attack that killed Mastin. On January 18, 1862 Mangas rode by himself under a flag of truce into Fort McLane to discuss terms for peace. The warpath was too costly. The soldiers took advantage of the opportunity to lynch him, but as they were preparing the noose Mangas was killed by bayonet during an escape attempt. The murder of Mangas added several more years to the Cochise War. After Mastin died Sherrod Hunter took command of the Guards and marched off to secure Tucson for the Confederacy. The photos show Fort Cobre in Pinos Altos and the mouth of Spring Canyon in the Florida Mountains where Mastin recovered the herd. Fort Cobre was a stout triangular fortification built after the War Between the States ended and mining resumed at Pinos Altos. The fort was kept provisioned for defense and it contained a water well and a cannon, but the fighting was pretty much over with.
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