Captain Valentine Dresher halted his Company B, 1st Infantry, California Volunteers, at Cooke's Spring, New Mexico, on October 2, 1863. Their march had been easterly from Fort West. The Captain chose this location for a new Fort. The location was about 20 miles northeast of present-day Deming, New Mexico. Ruins of the fort are off State Highway 26 about 7 miles from the Florida, New Mexico, Siding of the railroad. They are partly on BLM land and partly on private property of the Hyatt Family Ranch.
Picture from the book, Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, by Gregory F. Michno.
Cooke's Peak rises about 8 miles north of the fort's ruins. The Peak, the Spring, and a Canyon were all named for Colonel Philip St. George Cooke who led the Mormon Battalion from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to California in 1846. From 1863 over the next 10 years, soldiers built barracks, a hospital, several other buildings and a high adobe wall around the Fort.
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