Cienega of San Simon, was a cienega, an area of springs 13 miles up the San Simon River from San Simon Station, in Cochise County, Arizona.
History
Cienega of San Simon was a camping and watering place on the Southern Emigrant Trail after John Coffee Hays pioneered the Tucson Cutoff route from Cooke's Wagon Road to the east in the Animas Valley to Tucson via Stein's Pass to the Cienega, to Apache Pass, to Nugent’s Pass, to the lower crossing of the San Pedro River near Tres Alamos, to rejoin Cooke's road again at a waterhole, just east of modern Mescal, Arizona. The Cienega was located 5 miles south southwest of the mouth of Stein's Pass and 23 miles from Apache Pass. It was used by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line as a rest and water stop and by later stagecoach lines during the Apache Wars as a safer route than the Butterfield Overland Mail route through the Doubtful Canyon to the north.
Today the New Mexico San Simon Cienaga does not extend as far north and is found further up the river in Hidalgo County, New Mexico at 32°03′03″N 109°2′15″W / 32.05083°N 109.03750°W / 32.05083; -109.03750.
References
- ^ The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. L (Part I), United States. War Dept, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1897, pp. 121–22
- John P. Wilson, Peoples of the Middle Gila: A Documentary History of the Pimas and Maricopas, 1500s – 1945, Researched and Written for the Gila River Indian Community, Sacaton, Arizona, 1999, p. 111
- Table of distances from Texas Almanac, 1859 Archived 2013-11-12 at the Wayback Machine, Book, ca. 1859; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123765/ Archived 2013-11-12 at the Wayback Machine accessed November 12, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu Archived 2000-02-10 at the Wayback Machine; crediting Texas State Historical Association, Denton, Texas
- U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: San Simon Cienega
External links
- GNIS data – Cienega Spring – 32°08′47″N 109°32′27″W / 32.14639°N 109.54083°W / 32.14639; -109.54083
- GNIS data – Cienega Spring – 31°54′34″N 109°07′44″W / 31.90944°N 109.12889°W / 31.90944; -109.12889