Fort Bowie National Historic Site in northeastern Arizona/Jim Stratton

In the far eastern reaches of Arizona, nestled in the pass between the Chiricahua and Dos Cabezas mountains, 20 miles or so from its border with New Mexico, sits the well-preserved remains of Fort Bowie, which was established as a National Historic Site in 1972.  Apache Pass, and its year-round water supply, hosted Fort Bowie from 1861 to 1894 and was a key site in the decades-long battle against the Apache. 

I like to hike, so was particularly thrilled to learn that Fort Bowie is a hike-in only park, the first and possibly the only hike-in park in the system (the park ranger wasn’t certain about its exclusivity).  Unless you have a handicapped sticker on your car, you simply cannot drive there.  It is a perfect place to get some exercise and learn a bit about how the U.S. Army treated the Apache 150 years ago.

It took a couple of hours to drive from Tucson, dropping south off Interstate 10 at Willcox for a 28-mile drive on highway 186 to the turnoff onto Apache Pass Road for the eight mile drive to the trailhead.  This last eight miles is a dirt road and it’s in pretty good shape. There were a couple RVs parked at the trailhead, along with cars and trucks from nine different states. This visitor diversity is a great reminder that hanging out in Arizona in January is a great escape from colder northern climates and that the national parks are widely appreciated.

The trailhead hosts several covered picnic tables (and an outhouse), so with our Montana friends Bruce and Bonnie, my girlfriend Craig and I fueled up on cheese, crackers, carrots and chocolate for our 1.5-mile-hike through the desert grassland and mesquite to the fort.  The hike is a moderate one with some elevation gain heading into Apache Pass and the fort site. Along the trail, the Park Service has done a good job of interpreting a series of skirmishes and battles between the Army and Apache, and tells the story of why Fort Bowie is located where it is.  With year-around water near the fort, the birding on the hike was pretty good as well.

One of the sites along the trail is the old Butterfield Stage Station that was active in Apache Pass from 1858 to 1861.  Butterfield had the contract to deliver mail from Memphis and St. Louis to California, and the presence of water made this a logical spot for a stage station.  The Civil War ended Butterfield’s mail delivery contract, but remnants of the station are still there for you to see.  It took 24 days for the mail to get to California, a transit that, at the time, was lightning fast compared to shipping it around the tip of South America.

1861 was also the year of the pass’s first battle between local Apaches and the Army.  It started with a misunderstanding about who had abducted a young boy from a neighboring ranch during an Indian raid.  The Army was certain that is was the Chiricahua Apaches, led by Cochise.  A column of soldiers led by Lt. George Bascom was sent to capture Cochise and secure the boy's return.  But Cochise had nothing to do with the whole affair. Bascom didn’t believe him and the resulting 16 days of fighting, known today as the Bascom Affair, was the first real conflict between Apaches and the Army in this region. 

There was another battle in Apache Pass in 1862, only this one was between Union Army volunteers from California and the Chiricahua Apache.  Sent to the region to fight Confederate soldiers who had their eyes on the California gold fields, the Californians were attacked by the Apaches. This battle, known as the Battle of Apache Pass, led to the army establishing Fort Bowie, named after California regiment commander George Bowie, not Jim Bowie of big knife fame.  

The first fort was a series of tents and primitive huts, and the site can be visited on a short trail from the current fort location.  Construction of the second fort, and the one you can visit today, began in 1868 and grew into one of the most important outposts for fighting Apaches in the Southwest.  Conflicts with Cochise went on for 10 years until peace was made in 1872 and the Apache were given a reservation on their traditional homeland. 

The weathered-down remains of the barracks at Fort Bowie National Historic Site/Jim Stratton

Cochise’s Chiricahua Reservation was only in existence until 1876, when it was closed and the Chiricahua Apache were moved to another reservation in the Gila River Valley.  Only Geronimo and his followers didn’t like that idea, and this precipitated a second round of fighting between the Apache and the U.S. Army.  Conflicts with Geronimo lasted 10 years until he was captured in 1886.  As armed conflicts with the local Apache were no longer a concern, the fort was closed in 1894.

The trail goes by several key battle locations for both the Bascom Affair and the Battle for Apache Pass and the Park Service does a good job of telling the local stories.  There is also a graveyard by the trail that includes the grave of Little Robe, Geronimo’s two-year old son.  There is a guide that tells a story for each of the 23 gravesites.  Be sure and take some time to read some of these stories, including the one about O.O. Spence and how he won his Medal of Honor in a battle with Cochise in October 1869.

Fort Bowie cemetery/Jim Stratton

The hike ends at the fort site. No complete buildings remain, but walls for most of the 38 structures standing when the fort closed have been preserved, and they give you a good sense of how the fort was laid out.  Each building is well-interpreted along the pathway that winds through the fort site.  I was not expecting to see photos of the officer’s quarters, which graphically illustrated that being an officer was WAY more comfortable than being an enlisted man. These homes looked like they could have been in any large city in America, not out in the middle of the Arizona desert.

There is a small visitor center and museum that tells the story of what it was like to live here, and you can get a stamp for your national parks passport.  And it was there that I met Junior Ranger Mitch, a sixth-grader traveling with his parents to “explore all the national parks.”  If only my parents had been cool enough to take me on a year-long trip across the country to visit all the parks!  Mitch’s parents decided that national parks would make the best classroom for their son, and he was being home-schooled through the park system.  His vest was covered with over 60 Junior Ranger badges!

After our chat with Mitch and his parents and good tour through the fort site, we headed back to the parking lot by way of the Overlook Ridge trail above the visitor center.  Don’t miss this trail, as you get great views of the fort site and the surrounding landscape, which helped me understand the strategic importance of this piece of real estate and better appreciate why the Army chose to build a fort here.

Editor's note: Jim Stratton long served as the Alaska regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. For more of his stories, check out his blog.