Mormon - Pyramid Cooke's Peak - Pyramids on Waymarking.com

Arriving in Santa Fe in October, General Kearny had dispatched Captain, now Lieutenant Colonel, Philip St. George Cooke, West Point class of 1827, to assume command of the battalion with the assignment to march the battalion to California and as an additional task, build a wagon road. Cooke was one of the finest frontier officers of the antebellum army. In Santa Fe all the women and children, except for a very few, and many sick men were sent to Pueblo, in present-day Colorado. A total of three separate detachments left the battalion and went to Pueblo to winter. For the next four months and 1,100 miles, Cooke led the battalion across some of the most arduous terrain in North America. Most of the Mormon soldiers soon learned to respect and follow this accomplished frontier officer. The group acquired another guide in New Mexico adventurer and mountain man Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who as an infant had traveled with his mother Sacagawea across the continent with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Lieutenant Smith and Dr. Sanderson continued with After the Mexican War of 1846-1847, the Mormon Battalion under Captain Philip St. George Cooke COOKE
blazed a trail through S.W. New Mexico to link newly acquired New Mexico and Arizona with the eastern United States.

The mountain range southeast of City of Rocks is named Cooke's Range after Captain Cooke. The prominent peak in the southern part of the range is Cooke's Peak.

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