Page 7 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Abstract
The emphasis of this work is on the area around Cooke’s Peak and the exceptional water resource near its base during the “American Frontier Period” (1846-1890). The Prehistoric Mimbres had made use of the area earlier while twentieth-century miners, ranchers, and military trainees from both world wars came later. However, only overviews of these earlier and later times are provided.
This area is presented as a focal point around which pivoted the consummation of Manifest Destiny, the development of California, and the settlement of the Southwest. The activities and incidents within the study area are blended into the overall picture of cause and effect in regard to broader geographical, social, and political maturation.
The Mormon Battalion, forty-niners, and earliest emigrant trains to the Pacific Coast are quickly followed by herds of Texas longhorns and massive flocks of New Mexico sheep. Rekindled international conflict over thenewboundaryisnarrowlyavoidedbyafreshagreementandtheGadsdenPurchase. Soonfreightersfollow and, in response to intense California lobbying, the road is improved and government subsidized mail service inaugurated.
Indian unrest precedes and follows the great upheaval in the Southwest due to regional involvement in the Civil War. Military posts, established to protect the Southern Overland Route, are temporarily abandoned during the fratricidal conflict and the Apaches defy the Confederate and Union forces in their serial attempts to reassert American control. The extension of the railroad and establishment of a final peace with the Apaches serve as preludes to the closing of the old frontier and permanent abandonment of much of the old road and its associated military and civilian installations.
The story is told not only in the activities of the greats such as Philip St. George Cooke and Mangas Coloradas or in the accomplishments of the near greats, for example, George Giddings and Colonel James Forsyth. It is also told in the lives of more common folk, whose contributions have usually not been recognized such as John Cremony, Cuchillo Negro, and John Strentzel and his wife Louisiana.
For many years, during the American Frontier Period, the focal area remains devoid of long-term residents and functions only as a year-round travel, communication, and supply route. As time progresses, areas around the spring and high up on the mountain become temporarily populated. With only a sprinkling of civilians supporting travel along the road, the spring area maintains a military aura while a few miles away, the miners develop a more complete community. And, as the people cluster around the peak, the final story draws increasingly tighter, focusing on their lives.
It is the blending of these many personalities and the difficulties that they faced, not always successfully, that makes the story truly a cross-section of Americana. Some of the characters are heroes, some are villains, and still others’ roles are not so clearly defined as they drift in the gray area separating good from evil. They all, however, in one way or another, play a role in the settlement of the Southwestern and Western United States and the realization of American Manifest Destiny.
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