Whitmire Spring, on the west shore of Playas Lake in southwestern New Mexico, is one of several water sources fed from the Animas Mountains near the old Whitmire Ranch. Named for rancher J. B. Whitmire, who settled there in the 1880s during the closing years of the Apache Wars, it had been important much earlier as a crucial stop on the 1846 march of Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke and the Mormon Battalion. After two dry days and about 40 miles from Burro Cienega, it was their first substantial water. Cooke’s route later became part of a southern trail used by California-bound Gold Rush emigrants.