Cooke's Wagon Road

Cooke and the Mormon Battalion establish the route

Philip St. George Cooke submitted a report of his journey on February 22, 1847, which was printed by the U.S. Senate in 1849 as the "Official Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke from Santa Fe, in New Mexico, to San Diego, in Upper California." This report documented his command of the Mormon Battalion and the expedition that created the wagon route later known as Cooke's Wagon Road or Cooke's Road. Cooke later wrote a book in 1878 titled "The Conquest of New Mexico and California," though it provided less detail than his original report.

The road began at his last camp on the west bank of the Rio Grande, 258 miles southwest of Santa Fe and 29 miles downriver from where Colonel Stephen W. Kearny's Expedition left the river for California. Cooke was ordered to take the wagons Kearny could not manage through the rugged New Mexico mountains and build a wagon road linking to Kearny's route farther west on the Gila River. The road extended 433 miles southwestward through Guadalupe Pass in the Guadalupe Mountains, then westward to the San Pedro River, following it northward before turning west near modern Benson, Arizona to Tucson.

From Tucson it crossed arid desert northwestward to the Gila River, 9 miles east of the Pima Villages, where it rejoined Kearny's Gila Trail.

Subsequent Journey along Kearney's Route

After leaving his first camp on the Gila River, Cooke built a wagon road along Kearny's Gila Trail, following the river to the Yuma Crossing on the Colorado. Once across, the route stretched 89 miles through the Colorado Desert, linking Cooke's Wells, Alamo Mocho Well, and Indian Wells before reaching Carrizo Creek and the Vallecito oasis.

Recovered from that crossing, the battalion carved a 47-mile wagon road up into the San Felipe Valley, over Warner Pass in the Laguna Mountains, and on to Warner's Ranch, pushing through the rough terrain around Box Canyon. From Warner's, they marched 58 miles northwest through Aguanga and west to Temecula, then southwest to the San Luis Rey River, following it west past Mission San Luis Rey to the Pacific. The final leg headed south along El Camino Real to Mission San Diego.