Beale Wagon Road

Before the rails, before Route 66, there were camels. In 1857 Lieutenant Edward Beale led a crew west along the 35th parallel to build a wagon road from Arkansas to California, and the War Department sent him twenty-two camels to test as desert pack animals. The camels did fine; the experiment ended anyway when the Civil War came. Beale's road became the route the railroad chose, which became the route Route 66 chose, which became Interstate 40. Every road through here is really the same old road.

What the plaque says

Beale Wagon Road. Seligman, Arizona. From 1857 to 1860 Lt. Edward F. Beale and a crew of 100 men built the first federal highway in the southwest. The 1857 Beale Expedition used 22 camels and dromedaries for pack animals. This road went from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, California at a cost of $210,000. The Beale Wagon Road was used by military troops and emigrants en route to California. Herds of cattle and sheep were driven over the route until 1883., Information compiled by Jack Beale Smith

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Seligman — 1.4 mi
  The town that refused to die when the interstate went around it — a barber's crusade made this the Birthplace of Historic Route 66, and the reason the Mother Road still runs.
• Grand Canyon Caverns — 24 mi
  The largest dry cavern in the country, 210 feet under Route 66 — a Cold War fallout shelter, the deepest hotel room in America, and a Hualapai burial place the tourists once mistook for a sideshow.

More markers nearby

• Delgadillo's Snow Cap — steps away
• Ash Fork — 23 mi
• The Escalante Hotel — 23 mi
• Grand Canyon Caverns — 23 mi