Doubtful Canyon Ranch — Image by kenne
Today ranches exist along the narrow privative road through Doubtful Canyon.
In the 1860’s the Butterfield Overland Stage route went through the canyon.
Apache Raiders made passage through the canyon very ‘DOUBTFUL!’
In April 1861 the Giddings’ Party was ambush near Steins Peak stagecoach station.
Cochise and his Apaches killed nine men, but reserved the worst torture for those captured alive.
Doubtful Canyon Ranch
In 2012, Tom, Steve, and I decided to follow the old stagecoach route through Doubtful Canyon, which we began in the small ranch town of San Simon. Once making it through the canyon, we planned to stay overnight in Lordsburg, New Mexico.
The old road, now used primarily by area ranchers, is very premature. There were some places.
The road was so narrow that you could not pass through without the bushes scraping the sides of the truck.
Still, other places were wide-open rangeland having only an occasional gate we would have to stop and open.
Our goal was to find the Giddings Grave Marker, which was marked on our maps. We also knew the location was on the lowest northwest slope of Steins Peak. Even though we scattered out, crisscrossing the area, we were not able to find the marker. Here’s a picture of the area where the grave sits, which I found on the Internet.
Doubtful Canyon Panorama
Wow amazing photographs.
Happy and Healthy New Year!
Thank you — Happy New Year.
Thank you 🙂
What an adventure!
Wow! I’m excited that you were able to still travel that old route. I would have definitely thought it would have been Doubtful to do that today.
There were some places where we were doubtful we would be able to get the truck through.
I can well imagine that. I’ve had similar experiences, once in the Lake District in England and once in West Texas. Both times I got out of the car and checked the next “passage” on foot. Everything went well, though.
So sorry that you can’t control mother nature….The earth does what it wants…
I ran doubtful canyon back in the early 70s. On one trip I found “Giddings grave” purportedly erected by his daughter. I found a tall pink granite (if i remember right) obelisk with the Giddings info on it. I see the grave marker today and it looks different as if the obelisk had been broken off. I remember that the grave marker looked so fresh as if it had been put out only yesterday. I understood the marker was put out in the late 1800s. Also remember a mining area with a vertical shaft and some old ore cars on a rail line coming out from the shaft horizontally. Always wanted to go back and re-visit this area.
Jeff, Thanks for adding to the story. This adventure was on Tom’s bucket list of things we did together. Tom has since passed away on August 17, 2022.