Willcox, Arizona, Cattle, Chiricahua, and Wine Country

When the Southern Pacific arrived in eighteen eighty, this corner of Cochise County became the cattle shipping capital of the Southwest. Cowboys drove longhorns and Herefords down from the Sulphur Springs Valley to the Willcox railhead, and for two decades it was one of the busiest livestock depots in the territory. The town was named for General Orlando Willcox, commander of the Army's Department of Arizona during the Apache campaigns.

Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache ranged through the mountains immediately to the south before his surrender in eighteen eighty-six. Willcox's most famous son is Rex Allen, the last of Hollywood's singing cowboys, born here in nineteen twenty. And in recent decades the Sulphur Springs Valley has turned into an unexpected wine region, with elevations above four thousand feet producing cool nights that suit Syrah and Malvec.