Cooke’s Wagon Road

Cooke’s Wagon Road is a New Mexico historical marker in Luna County.

I-10 -- mile marker 61 -- Deming vicinity -- west of Deming Rest Area

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In 1846, while leading the Mormon Battalion to California during the Mexican War, Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke blazed a wagon road from New Mexico to the West Coast. The potential use of the route for the railroad construction was one of the reasons for the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Cooke entered Arizona through Guadalupe Pass.

The Historic Preservation Division notes that its marker spreadsheet may be out of date and in places inaccurate, and that it does not know where every marker now stands. These pages carry the spreadsheet’s record; a marker listed here may have moved or may no longer stand. the program’s page ↗

TodayHistorical map

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David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1855 · Sketch of Public Surveys in New Mexico 1855 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1876 · Territory of New Mexico (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1882 · Territory Of New Mexico. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1883 · New Mexico. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1889 · New Mexico. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Territory of New Mexico, 1876, covering the location of Cooke’s Wagon Road, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Territory of New Mexico, 1876, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

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The marker isn't at this spotOur pin may be off. If you know where it stands, tell us.I couldn't find the markerWe record what the source recorded. We have not been to look.The sign reads differentlyThat would be an error, and we can pass it to the program.The historical map looks wrongThe period map behind the pin, not the marker itself.Something else

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

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