The Geronimo surrender site is located in SE Arizona near the New Mexico State line.
I would've liked to have been there when the commander said we're going to go meet Geronimo and he's going to Surrender.
Where are we going to meet him sir? Skeleton Canyon. Skeleton Canyon!
Could we arrange to meet him somewhere else? I don't really feel comfortable meeting Geronimo at skeleton Canyon.
The actual surrender is located in the mouth of the canyon East of the monument.
The monument is located on the highway about 40 miles north of Douglas, Arizona

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Two years in Florida tops. My rear end. The old adage never changes; "Hi were from the government and we're here to help." Ivan

Where have I heard that before?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

It wasn't so much The Government that prevented Geronimo from returning.
It was the citizens of Arizona. He had terrorized them for years.
Once they finally got him out of the area, there was no way they would agree to his return.

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From everything I've read, Geronimo was a fearsome adversary and possessed a fighting spirit nearly unparalleled for the time.

I wish the monument didn't look so much like Pedro's sombrero from South of the Border on the Carolina border.

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I'm with the banned ...

Geronimo was one tough hombre. Thanks for sharing that. My hobby is studying history. I will always be a student, never a master. There is just too much history and so little time. I do know one thing. Arizona in the spring is just about paradise.

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Now that you mention it, it does look a bit like a hat.
There's a big rock formation Called Mexican Hat, up in S. Utah.
Need more info on Pedro's sombrero, SC.

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I grew up in Lawton Oklahoma, home to Ft Sill. They had Geronimo imprisoned there for quite a while. It got to the point they would leave his cell open in the old guardhouse open and he would come and go as he pleased. He spent a lot of time at the local saloons selling his picture so he could buy cheap booze. While not published a lot, the local folk lore was that Geronimo fell from his horse one night riding back to Ft Sill when drunk and lie in the cold overnight. He developed pneumonia and passed away. A very ignoble end to a great warrior.

Because of the POW status of Geronimo and his followers there is a recognized tribe, The Ft Sill Apache, that has members descended from the original 81 POWs.

The Ft Sill Apache cemetery is located on land at FT Sill, OK and Geronimo is buried there as well as many other tribal members. Geronimo's headstone in beneath some trees decorated with many dream catchers and other things in the trees and his marker is a large pyramid made of native stone. Many people leave items of respect on his marker, thinks like quarters, cigarettes and small bottle of liquor.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...en_in_2005.jpg


bob

google.... south of the border,sc

I was raised around Douglas and graduated from high school there. Spent many an hour collecting artifacts near White Water draw which was a mile from our house. There were plenty and I had a respectable collection of arrowheads when I was 15. I'm sure they were all Apache. They terrorized the locals around there for years.

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Gotta love the West's monument markers. IIRC the Geronimo marker plaque starts off like " At a spot near here..."
Which means,it was six miles away, but Joe Tourist isn't driving that far down this excuse of a road, we'll put the marker next to the highway.
Supposedly there is a rock pile in a set of corrals to mark the true surrender site at Skeleton Canyon. I dunno, I haven't been there in a couple years.

I read the posts on the "Lounge" a few times every day and never fail to learn something. The range of knowledge here is staggering. The best part is that it encourages me to do further research on interesting subjects, Geronimo being one of them. I learned more about him in the past hour than I did in the past 80 years.

Great post. Thanks. I will put it on my list of places to visit.

We also learned that Pedro's Sombrero is a SC roadside tourist trap.
For some reason, the folks who brought it up don't want to tell us that.

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I learned that the Apaches terrorized "locals" there in Arizona, but I guess I need to rethink my meaning of the term, "locals".

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Been there and seen that monument circa early eighties. We were going to California in a three three foot-long mobile home.

A story about Douglas. We stopped there for the night camping out in some restaurants parking lot.They had a tornado siren go off about tem pm.The tornado hit the farm or tractor dealership we were camped only about one hundred feet from.We heard the sirens,the thunderstoorm and roar of winds not knowing exactly what was happening. Woke up the next morning and there were a few tractors that were lifted from the dealership and tossed about in the restaurants parking lot.One tractor landed maybe about fivety to seventy five feet in front of where we were parked. The dealership suffered extensive damage--the restaurant had almost none. We were parked in between the two businesses.

In This particular case, 'locals' includes just about everybody who's not an Apache. That would include Spanish speaking Hispanics, English speaking Anglos and other Native Americans (Indians) .
In some cases it might also include other Apaches. And it definitely includes Mexicans. Jerome and others including Cochise regularly raided into Mexico.
Cochise apparently figured out which away the wind was blowing.
At that time, he stopped raiding in Arizona. But he continued raiding Mexico.
And then recovered back to Arizona.

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I spent the night a few years back in the old Gadsden Hotel in Douglas, AZ This was in January and they failed to tell us there was no heat. It's an interesting place with a grand marble staircase which had chips in it purportedly make by Pancho Villa's horse as he rode it up and down the stairway. It has a full mountain lion mount mid was up the staircase.
You can throw a rock ,literally, into Mexico from the Douglas side of the border.
The place obtained national exposure on the Hotel Impossible show last year.
Jim

A few years ago, I was down at Douglas for the first time.
I pulled into the visitor center and was amazed to see a big stone building behind it.
It's the old train depot, now the police station. Built by the copper folks, I think.
Really large for a town that size.
Have driven by the Gadsden, never gone in.

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A pretty good case can be made that Geronimo and his band were terrorists or bandits. I think they were lucky to have been deemed as POW's.

He was one ugly person... in looks and in deeds.

It seems ironic that in WWII, paratroopers screamed his name as they jumped.

I agree, I was always taught that Geronimo broke Cochise's word to the US Cavalry NOT to raid in Arizona and became an Outcast to the Apache..

You can certainly argue that Cochise and his clan killed more people than Geronimo. But Cochise was never feared like Geronimo and was generally well thought of in AZ. The large SE corner AZ county is Cochise County. The Geronimo surrender site is in Cochise County.
Not much there is named for Geronimo.
Cochise's Grandson is buried in the 'regular' Tombstone cemetery.


Cochise, Chief. Nino b. February 6, 1874 d. December 23, 1984
Grandson of Cochise, Son of Tahza, Nephew of Geronimo. Leader of the Apache Indians for 87 years. At age 92, missing 1 leg and having to have help into the saddle, he won a role to play his fabled Grandfather in a 1967 episode of the television series, "High Chaparral." Nino died at 110 years of age in Arizona. (Bio by: MB)
Tombstone Cemetery (Old), Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona, USA

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My dad worked for the Southern Pacific RR in the 50's. He made that run from Douglas to El Paso many times. When I was in high school I was hired to salvage the copper telephone line that was left when the RR abandoned that line. Spent the whole summer between Douglas and Columbus NM climbing poles and dropping lines to be placed on a power spool and rolled. Best summer job I ever had and made some decent money doing it.

The border used to be open and people crossed without incident. I remember seeing people cross in Douglas by just going under the fence at the edge of town. Never bothered going to the "official" crossing where the BP agents were.

Back in the 60's when the mine in Bisbee and the smelter in Douglas was operating that area was thriving. I believe that economy has been replaced with DHS jobs. Haven't been there since 75 but will wander through next month to see what's changed.

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If anyone had asked me, I would have said it was south of Road Forks. Just sayin............

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JMHO-YMMV

I had a Trapdoor Springfield for years (Model 1884) and I would tell people who handled it, "that rifle was made the same year that Geronimo surrendered, out in the Arizona Territory."

I guess it was a way to embody and bring to light the historic nature of the arm and the man.

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