Fort Bowie was established in 1862 to protect the area from Apache attacks. It was very crude and epitomized what a frontier fort was like. It served as the center of military campaigns against the Chiricahua Apaches first led by Cochise, then by Geronimo. In 1868, improvements were begun to make it a small, self-sufficient fort. Cochise made peace in 1872. When Geronimo surrendered in 1886, it was the beginning of the end of the fort. In 1894, Fort Bowie ceased to exist.
In one of the photos below, an informational marker shows a picture of the fort in its heyday. All that's left is the rock foundations.
Fort Bowie is about 80 miles east of Tucson (120 miles drive distance) and about 30 miles from the New Mexico border. Once off the main road, it's an 8 mile drive along a dirt road, than a 1 1/2 mile walk to the site.
The start of the 1 1/2 mile trail to the site.
Ruins of a stagecoach station.
3 Indian graves about a mile from the fort. Note who is buried in the grave on the left. 72 soldiers and their dependents were buried here, but right afterthe fort closed in 1894, they wereinterred in a national cemetery in San Francisco.
Further along the trail. You can see the cemetery on the left, about half way down.
Some of the ruins of the original fort.
More ruins of the original fort.
The new fort taken from the hill where the old fort was located. The NPS site is way over to the left, about a 1/3 of the way down.
More of the new fort. Some of the walls were covered with adobe to protect them (the ones with the smooth surface).
The plaque for the 2nd fort. The photo was taken in the year it closed..
This is what made life possible out here: Apache Spring It's not much, but it was all that was needed.
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