Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Mountain View RV Park, Bowie, AZ - Dec 16-17
This is a very small Passport park, which was certainly not widely used. We were the only people who actually stayed two nights! We planned this stop because the town was close to Chiricahua Natl Monument, which we wanted to visit. We started out for our visit and found that the road was closed for the day because they were replacing a cattle guard. Of course there was no warning of this before we had driven about 10 miles in. At this point, making the circle of 50-60 miles to get there the long way seemed out of the question. 
We consulted our map and some roadside signs and discovered we were quite near Fort Bowie Natl Historic Site, a place that is really in the middle of nowhere, but is quite fascinating when you "get to know it". It was set up in 1862 after the Battle of Apache Pass, to protect the road through the pass as well as a nearby natural spring, which were both terrorized for many years by Apaches led by Cochise and Geronimo. The fort protected the route for emigrants, prospectors, soldiers and most importantly the Butterfield Overland Mail route. Butterfield delivered mail twice a week from Memphis and St Louis to San Francisco. In it's three-year history, the mail was late only three times!! When the fort was abandoned in 1894 after the Indians were all captured or killed, all usable items were scavenged by nearby residents, so all that remains is the foundations of the buildings and some artifacts. There is a lovely hiking trail that takes you past many interesting places with excellent signage about the history of the area. Many myths of the "cowboys & Indians" era are revised!# posted by Doug and Willie @ 11:44 PM 
