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This Week in the West, Episode 14: Edward Fitzgerald Beale

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Episode 14: Edward Fitzgerald Beale

Howdy folks, it’s the first week of February 2025 and welcome to This Week in The West.

I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.

It must have been a strange and confounding site for those pioneers, native people and soldiers living in the Southwest in 1857. Coming over the horizon, kicking up dust, was a column of men, wagons and animals. 

Leading the way was former Navy lieutenant and adventurer Edward Fitzgerald Beale – and 25 camels. 

The United States Camel Corps and the trail cut through the country were just two of the notable chapters in the life of Beale, who was born this week, February 4, 1822.

Who was Edward Fitzgerald Beale? He was a multi-faceted frontiersman who was a war hero, explorer, spy, diplomat and rancher who had a hand in the Gold Rush, creating the road that eventually turned into Route 66 and victory in the Mexican-American War.

Wrote his historian and Beale biographer Gerald Thompson: “Beale successfully pursued a personal El Dorado of adventure, status, and wealth. In doing so, he mirrored the dreams of countless Americans of his day.”

We’ll circle back to the camels. Decades before, Beale spent his teens and twenties in the Navy, visiting ports around the world – Europe, Russia, South America and the Caribbean.

In 1845, Beale turned spy, visiting Great Britain in disguise to find out more about British intentions in the Oregon Territory. He reported back to President James K. Polk and then hopped on another ship, which eventually made its way to California amid the Mexican-American War. 

Beale served with forces on land during the Battle of San Pasqual, sneaking through enemy lines (along with Kit Carson) to rally reinforcements for the American troops. He was hailed as a hero.

He received even more recognition in 1848 when he again disguised himself for a secret mission into Mexico and California to find proof for the government that gold had indeed been discovered. 

Which leads us back to the camels. 

Given his past successes, In 1857, President James Buchanan chose Beale to lead a survey of the Southwest, with the goal of building a road between Fort Defiance, Arizona and the Colorado River on the California border. Taking the camels was part of an experiment being done by the US Army to see if the animals would be beneficial in expansion across the plains and deserts of the West. 

The path laid out by Beale mostly followed the 35th parallel, cutting a path through Southern California, Northern Arizona and New Mexico. Beale eventually worked to extend the road all the way east to Fort Smith, Arkansas. 

Through the 1860s and 1870s, what became known as “Beale’s Wagon Road” became a popular passage for settlers heading West. Soon, the railways ran parallel to it, including the Santa Fe. Then, it was traced by Route 66 and eventually today’s Interstate 40. Parts of the original wagon road are still visible today.

Again, Thompson writes of Beale’s legacy: “In opening this highway. Beale joined the small group of explorers who left an enduring mark on the American West during the nineteenth century.”

As for the camels, that idea never really stuck with the Army. They didn’t get along with each other and scared the mules. By the time of the Civil War, the more than 100 camels at Camp Verde, Texas, began roaming through the wild. Some were rounded up and sold. The last camel was seen there in 1875.

Beale returned to California in 1865 and 1866 and bought up land once home to the Army’s Fort Tejon. All together, he amassed a 270,000-acre spread called Tejon Ranch, which became the largest privately-held area of California. He even bought some of those Army Surplus camels to graze on it. 

The ranchland remains intact to this day, held by a publicly traded company.

He also bought the Decatur House in Washington, DC. Located across the street from the White House, it had been the residence of several Secretaries of State. Beale used it to entertain his friends, including Buffalo Bill Cody and President Ulysses Grant.

Grant gave Beale his final adventure, appointment as the ambassador to Austria-Hungary. Beale shared his tales of Western daring-do with his European hosts during his year in the post. 

Beale returned to the U.S. and retired to Washington. He died there in 1893 at the age of 71.

And with that, we’ve blazed the trail through another episode of “This Week in The West.”

Our show is produced by Chase Spivey and written by Mike Koehler

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Got a question or a suggestion? Drop us an email at podcast@nationalcowboymuseum.org

We leave you today with some words from The San Francisco News-Letter newspaper, writing about Beale’s appointment as an ambassador: “…Beale took bigger risks, showed more endurance, underwent more trying hardships than any other man, whether in the Army or out of it. He out-scouted any scout and out-rode any mail-rider we had in the service. He showed himself an iron-man put up with steel springs and whalebone …”

Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. 

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