This valley took its name from two springs one mile north. From 400 A.D. to 1450 A.D. indigenous Indians farmed the region, and their bedrock mortar pits remain on a nearby hill. Later Chiricahua Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans, Anglo-American immigrants, and U.S. soldiers used the springs as a camping ground. Between 1857 and 1878 several stage lines, including the Butterfield Overland Stage Company, operated a relay station here. In 1872, with Tom Jeffords as agent, the springs became the first headquarters of the short-lived Chiricahua Indian Reservation. After storekeepers Nick Rogers and O.O. Spence were murdered in 1876 as a result of selling whiskey to the Indians, the Apaches were removed to San Carlos. Cattlemen James Pursley and Robert Wolfe, known as the Sulphur Springs Boys, ranched here until 1885, when they merged with the famous Chiricahua Cattle Company.