Soldiers Hole was a well-known watering place of early stage days. Nothing here now but wide open beauty, a monument to the place, and an old chair, perhaps to provide rest for the rare, weary traveler.

According to the inscription on the plaque, cavalry troops camped here during the Chiricahua Apache Campaign (1861-1886) because of a source of water known as Soldiers Hole. W. C. Sanderson and Ambrose Lyall struck artesian water nearby in 1883. A small settlement existed nearby in the 1890s, but after the railroad bypassed the site in 1909, it was largely abandoned.