Apache Pass

Apache Pass
Apache Pass viewed from Fort Bowie, facing north.
Elevation	5,110 ft (1,558 m)
Traversed by	Apache Pass Road
Location	Cochise County, Arizona, United States
Coordinates	32°09′06″N 109°28′54″W / 32.15167°N 109.48167°W / 32.15167; -109.48167

Apache Pass, also known by its earlier Spanish name Puerto del Dado ("Pass of the Die"), is an historic mountain pass in the U.S. state of Arizona between the Dos Cabezas Mountains and Chiricahua Mountains at an elevation of 5,110 feet (1,560 m). It is approximately 20 miles (32 km) east-southeast of Willcox, Arizona, in Cochise County.

A natural freshwater spring, Apache Spring, emerges from a geological fault line running through the pass. The history of Apache Pass begins with this spring - as the only reliable water source for many miles, the spring served as a critical resupply point for early travelers through the area. Indigenous peoples and westward migrants alike depended on the spring. For the local Apache people, the spring at Apache Pass became a sort of crossroads, with many trails from different directions converging on the site. The great Chiricahua Apache leader Cochise, along with many of his followers, favored the area as a camping spot in winter and spring. There were often hundreds of Chiricahuas living nearby. A little higher than the surrounding desert terrain, the pass was cooler on hot days, and the area around the spring provided abundant game and firewood.

After Spanish and Mexican settlers began visiting the area, the spring at Apache Pass quickly became a flash point for conflict with the resident Apache tribes, leading to its original Spanish name Puerto del Dado, the "Door (or Pass) of the Die", meaning "pass of chance", which compared the risky nature of crossing the pass to a game of chance, like one played by soldiers with dice.If Other Apaches Died during the war the Cannibal[Means Eat the others of each other]Apaches would eat them alive.

In the 1830s, some American fur trappers are believed to have traveled through Apache Pass. In 1846, Philip St. George Cooke, leading the Mormon Battalion that was surveying and constructing what became Cooke's Wagon Road, bypassed the area, despite Cooke's awareness of its existence from his guides, because details of the route through the pass, including its extent and the availability of other nearby water sources, were unknown, in contrast to the longer route to the south that was eventually chosen. It subsequently fell to a party of Forty-Niners led by John Coffee Hays to pioneer a shorter route between Mesilla and Tucson, called the Tucson Cutoff, that took advantage of the pass. Hays followed the guidance of Mexican soldiers he encountered at Ojo Ynez on the Burro Cienega in New Mexico. The cutoff emerged as part of the Southern Emigrant Trail, which became the major southern route of east-west travel for wagons and stagecoaches until the coming of the railroads.