Disaster at the Colorado: Beale's Wagon Road and the First Emigrant Party

Rating:
Summary: Major contribution to a little known historical event
Review: This book is beginning to attract quite a bit of attention from historians, history buffs, and general readers alike. While there are a multitude of books recounting the history of the California, Santa Fe, Mormon and other historic trails, surprisingly little has been done on a little known Trail that originated in Ft. Smith, Ark., traversed southern Oklahoma, crossed the northern tip of Texas into New Mexico and Arizona and ended at the Colorado River crossing on the California-Arizona border. I predict it is the first of a flurry of studies looking at an amazing story this is largely untold.
In 1857 the War Department, eager to find an alternative route to the main California Trail that was considered risky given the mounting pressure to subdue Mormons in Utah, and the lengthy Southern Route that ran through Apache territory, commissioned a survey that resulted in the Beale Wagon Road. It was to be the first federally funded interstate road to traverse the rugged southwest desert, canyons, and rocky terrain obtained from Mexico at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a retired Navy Lieutenant, was chosed to survey and construct a road that was to attract emigrant wagon trains and save an estimated 200 miles and thirteen days of travel. Not only was the mission unique but also his crew of 50 men traveled with a most unusual contingent of pack animals: 22 camels from the Middle East were used to carry the supplies and equipment for the expedition.
The book traces the history of the Beale Road in general terms and specifically recounts the experiences of the first emigrant wagon train to attempt the crossing in 1858. The story of what came to be known as the Rose-Baley wagon train, comprised of a group of Missouri and Iowa emigrants that met in Albuquerque, is an exciting and tragic account of an effort to arrive in California and the "land of plenty." To say the attempt was a disaster is perhaps charitable. The road was not as passable as the civic leaders in Albuquerque stated; water was much more scarce as originally thought; the so-called experienced guide was lacking in knowledge and directional aptitude; the peaceful Hualapais Indians were more hostile than advertised; and the reception encountered at the Colorado River crossing, instigated by the Mojave Indians, was deadly.
In a highly readable, narrative style Baley recounts the story and reviews its aftermath and legacy not only for the Rose-Baley emigrant party but also for the Mojave's and Beale's Wagon Road. There is an index, bibliography, appendix, extensive endnotes, and helpful maps and photos. This is a major contribution about the first emigrants attempt to traverse what was then known as the 35th paralled. Most now know it as old Route 66 and I-40. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating story almost lost to history
Review: This carefully researched and well written book will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in the history of the American west, the desert Southwest, the old emigrant trails, or historic Route 66. Beale's Wagon Road, which followed the route that was later to become the famous Route 66 across the Southwest (generally followed now by Interstate 40), was actually a faster and safer route to California than the much more popular Gila Trail to the south through Apache territory --- but it was avoided by most emigrant parties after news spread of the tragedy that befell the first party that attempted to follow it. Although almost forgotten now, the disaster was so notorious at the time that it wasn't until the opening of a railroad along the route, followed by the development of the automobile, that this historic road became widely used.

That ill-fated journey by the Rose-Baley wagon party is the subject of this book, along with useful background information on the Hualapai and Mojave Indians, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Sitgreaves, Whipple, Aubry, and Beale surveying expeditions across northern Arizona in the 1850s. This is a pioneering work on an important but largely forgotten event in the history of the westward migration in the 19th century, and it is surely the definitive work on the subject to this point.