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The Beale Wagon Road
In 1857, Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale was assigned the job of building a wagon road across New Mexico and Arizona near the 35th parallel. Beale had had many years’ experience in the west, first with the U.S. Navy in California, then with Kit Carson and John C. Fremont, and later, on government business and explorations in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and California. Beale’s road roughly followed Lt.
Amiel Whipple’s
trail west across Arizona through the The Beale Wagon Road is still visible in many places today and has been well documented in north central Arizona by Jack Beale Smith in a series of booklets called Tales of the Beale Road. Lewis Burt Lesley published one of Beale’s reports in 1929 in the book Uncle Sam’s Camels. Beale Places: Expeditions & Information:
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Flagstaff area and then headed
west and a little north through Peach Springs and Truxton Wash
(named for Beale’s son), thence through the Kingman area and
on to the Colorado River. Working from his ranch at Fort Tejon,
California, Beale made several trips across the two states
building and improving the road between 1857 and 1860. Perhaps
the thing that Beale is most remembered for is the use of camels
in his road-building expeditions. The camels were capable of
traveling for days without water, carried much heavier loads
than mules, and could thrive on forage that mules wouldn’t
touch. The camel driver Hadji Ali (Hi Jolly) worked for Beale
and later lived in western Arizona. Ali's grave is marked by a
stone pyramid topped by a copper camel in Quartzite, Arizona.