Fort Cummings was established in October 1863 in what is now Luna
County, New Mexico. It was located at Cooke’s Spring, an important
watering stop on the Butterfield Trail, at the eastern edge of Cooke’s
Canyon. Prior to the establishment of Fort Cummings, the Apaches made
frequent and fatal attacks upon travelers as they passed through the
four miles of Cooke’s Canyon or stopped at the spring. Cooke’s Canyon
was one of the most dangerous stretches on the Butterfield Trail. The
fort was named for Maj. Joseph Cummings who was killed by Navajo Indians
in August 1863. Its ruins can be reached by turning off State Highway 26
at Florida, sixteen miles northeast of Deming, and traveling seven miles
to the west.
Fort Cummings was the most elaborate and best-walled fort in New Mexico.
It covered an area 365 × 320 feet and was completely surrounded by a
twelve-foot-high adobe wall. The main entrance was topped by a guard
tower. Officers’ quarters occupied the west side of the parade ground,
the hospital the north side, and soldiers’ quarters the east side. The
various workshops, storerooms, offices, stables, and corrals extended
along the south side of the fort.
Abandoned in August 1873, Fort Cummings was reoccupied in 1880, and then
again abandoned in October 1886. Later it was used as a cattle corral by
the Carpenter-Stanley Cattle Company. The spring was walled and covered,
and the water piped to Florida.
Little remains of Fort Cummings today. A few weathered walls here and
there among the mesquite and creosote bushes mark the site. The spring
still flows, supplying water for the stock which now graze upon this
“protector of the trail.”