Palo Flechado Pass, meaning tree pierced with arrows, was used by natives and newcomers traveling from the eastern plains to Taos by way of the Cimarron River. Its name may come from the Flecha de Palo Apache band, first mentioned by Juan de Ulibarri in 1706, which inhabited the plains east of the mountains in the early 1700's, or from a Taos Indian custom of shooting one's remaining arrows into a tree near the pass after a successful buffalo hunt.