• Ruins of Fort Bowie

    Fort Bowie

    National Historic Site Arizona

Stories

Fort Bowie ruins

Ruins of Fort Bowie

NPS PHOTO

For more than 30 years Fort Bowie and Apache Pass were the focal point of military operations eventually culminating in the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 and the banishment of the Chiricahuas to Florida and Alabama. It was the site of the Bascom Affair, a wagon train massacre, and the battle of Apache Pass, where a large force of Chiricahua Apaches under Mangus Colorados and Cochise fought the California Volunteers.

Click on the links above to learn more about the stories and people that make Fort Bowie National Historical Site so unique.

Did You Know?

Heliograph

Heliographs are instruments which use a mirror and sunlight to transmit Morse Code.  General Nelson Miles realized that southern Arizona’s mountainous terrain and huge amounts of sunlight would make the heliograph useful in his campaigns from Fort Bowie against Geronimo in 1886.