Apache Pass is a low divide between the Chiricahua Mountains and the Dos Cabezas Mountains that formed a rugged corridor for the movement of people and goods. Long home to the Chiricahua Apaches, it was an identified landmark under Spanish and then Mexican rule, and its wood, water, and grass made it essential for travelers, animals, mail and freight employees, emigrants, surveyors, miners, and military forces. From the end of the Mexican War in 1848 through the Civil War years and especially during the Apache Wars, Apache Pass and nearby Apache Spring provided a direct east-west transportation corridor, and Fort Bowie later guarded the area. Wheeled transport began there in 1849 during the California Gold Rush, Butterfield Overland Mail crossed the pass from 1858 to 1861, the Bascom Affair in 1861 began more than a decade of conflict, and Cochise's 1862 attack on California Volunteers led to the U.S. Army's establishment of Fort Bowie to control the pass road and spring. After peace terms in 1872 and the brief existence of the Chiricahua Apache Reservation, military use increased again in the late 1870s until Geronimo's final surrender in 1886, and the last garrison left Fort Bowie in 1894. By the early 20th century the pass was nearly forgotten as a travel route because the Southern Pacific transcontinental railroad, completed in 1880, bypassed it, but its location between El Paso and Tucson became important again when the El Paso Natural Gas Company built a natural gas transmission line in 1933 and petroleum gas pipelines began crossing the pass in 1955. Though the wagon road, trails, and fort buildings have eroded, the landscape remains little changed, and Apaches still regard the corridor as part of their traditional homelands and maintain connections with its special places.