The Mojave River is an intermittent river in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains and the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of its flow is underground, while its surface channels remain dry most of the time, except for the headwaters and several bedrock gorges in the lower reaches.
Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, diplomat, and friend of Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody and Ulysses S. Grant. He fought in the Mexican–American War, emerging as a hero of the Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. He achieved national fame in 1848 in carrying to the east the first gold samples from California, contributing to the gold rush.
The United States Camel Corps was a mid-19th-century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwestern United States. Although the camels proved to be hardy and well suited to travel through the region, the Army declined to adopt them for military use. The Civil War interfered with the experiment, which was eventually abandoned; the animals were sold at auction.
The Old Spanish Trail is a historical trade route that connected the northern New Mexico settlements of Santa Fe, New Mexico with those of Los Angeles, California and southern California. Approximately 700 mi (1,100 km) long, the trail ran through areas of high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons. It is considered one of the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States. Explored, in part, by Spanish explorers as early as the late 16th century, the trail was extensively used by traders with pack trains from about 1830 until the mid-1850s.
The Mojave Road, also known as Old Government Road, is a historic route and present day dirt road across what is now the Mojave National Preserve in the Mojave Desert in the United States. This rough road stretched 147 miles (237 km) from Beale's Crossing, to Fork of the Road location along the north bank of the Mojave River where the old Mojave Road split off from the route of the Old Spanish Trail/Mormon Road.
Fort Mohave was originally named Camp Colorado when it was established on April 19, 1859 by Lieutenant Colonel William Hoffman during the Mohave War. It was located on the east bank of the Colorado River, at Beale's Crossing, near the head of the Mohave Valley in Mohave County, Arizona by the recommendation of Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale. After the end of the Indian Wars, the fort was transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1890. In 1935 it was transferred to the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation; the fort is administered by the state of Arizona.
In the history of the American frontier overland trails were built by pioneers throughout the 19th century and especially between 1829 and 1870 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States were spurred by various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move to destinations in the far west via routes including the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again enticed mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further lured people to travel overland to the west.
The Mohave War was an armed conflict between the Mohave people and the United States from 1858 to 1859. With the California Gold Rush of 1849, thousands of American settlers headed west through Mohave country and into California. The influx of migrants passing through, combined with simple misunderstandings, led to conflict. Fort Mohave on the Arizona side of the Colorado River was built for operations against the Mohave and was the second American military post established on the river after Fort Yuma. Eventually advantages in weaponry and tactics brought the Mohave and their allies to surrender. After the signing of a peace treaty in 1859, the Mohave no longer opposed the United States through warfare. The peace also ended a long guerrilla war between the Mohave and the Maricopa of south central Arizona.
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows, however it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857–1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858–1861.
Howard Springs, was a historical spring, located in the stream channel of Howard Draw at an elevation of 2031 feet, just north of the mouth of Government Canyon at its confluence with Howard Draw in what is now Crockett County, Texas.
Irataba was a leader of the Mohave Nation, known as a mediator between the Mohave and the United States. He was born near the Colorado River in present-day Arizona. Irataba was a renowned orator and one of the first Mohave to speak English, a skill he used to develop relations with the United States.
The Rose–Baley Party was the first European American emigrant wagon train to traverse the 35th parallel route known as Beale's Wagon Road, established by Edward Fitzgerald Beale, from Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico to the Colorado River near present-day Needles, California.
John Udell was an American farmer and Baptist lay preacher who is primarily known for two detailed diaries he kept of his travels to California across the Great Plains of the United States. He traversed the overland route four times between 1850 and 1859, returning by sea on his first three trips. After his fourth and final trip to California he remained there, settling in Solano County and later in Sonoma County. His first diary, Incidents of Travel to California Across the Great Plains, was published in 1856. His second diary, Journal of John Udell, Kept During a Trip Across the Plains, was first published in 1859 and is an account of his last trip to California as a member of the Rose-Baley Party.
Gillum Baley was an American pioneer and judge. With Leonard Rose he led the ill-fated Rose–Baley Party, the first emigrant wagon train to attempt the journey from New Mexico to California via Beale's Wagon Road. He was one of the earliest settlers of Bailey Flats, California, which was named for him, and eventually settled in nearby Millerton where he served as County Judge for twelve years.
Sarah (Sallie) Estelle Fox Allen was a California pioneer and a member of the ill-fated Rose–Baley Party, the first emigrant wagon train to attempt the journey from New Mexico to California via Beale's Wagon Road. A twelve-year-old child when she traveled on the wagon train, she was the subject of the 1995 children's book Sallie Fox: The Story of a Pioneer Girl. The apron that she wore over her dress when she was seriously injured by a Mojave Indian arrow during the 1858 attack on the Rose–Baley wagons is displayed in the Vacaville Museum which also holds an annual "Sallie Fox Day".
The Mohave Trail was a Native American trade route between Mohave Indian villages on the Colorado River and settlements in coastal Southern California.
Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail in the Western United States, was a seasonal wagon road pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of Spanish explorers and the Old Spanish Trail across southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert of California to Los Angeles in 1847. From 1855, it became a military and commercial wagon route between California and Utah, called the Los Angeles – Salt Lake Road. In later decades this route was variously called the "Old Mormon Road", the "Old Southern Road", or the "Immigrant Road" in California. In Utah, Arizona and Nevada it was known as the "California Road".
Beale's Crossing was a river crossing on the Colorado River, near the head of the Mohave Valley, between New Mexico Territory and California along the 35th Parallel route of Beale's Wagon Road. It was at what became the site of Fort Mohave in what is now Fort Mohave, Arizona, west of Beaver Lake, Nevada. It was named for Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who lead the expedition that built what came to be called Beale's Wagon Road from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Beale's Crossing in California, then by way of the Mohave Trail/Old Spanish Trail, and another old route west from the Mojave River to Fort Tejon, California.
Sitgreaves Pass is a gap at an elevation of 3,586 feet / 1,093 meters, in the Black Mountains of Mohave County, Arizona. When Edward Fitzgerald Beale built Beale's Wagon Road over this pass, he named it John Howells Pass for one of the men in his expedition in October, 1857. Subsequently, the pass was named for Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, who led the 1851 Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers. Sitgreaves' expedition never crossed the Black Mountains by this pass, but did farther north, at Secret Pass or at Union Pass. Under the mistaken impression Sitgreaves and his expedition had crossed this pass, the name was given to it by Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the Corps of Topographical Engineers in March 1858, as he passed eastward to survey the Colorado Plateau on his way to Fort Defiance, following his exploration of the Colorado River.
The Mojave Road Los Angeles was designated a California Historic Landmark on March 19, 1985. It runs from Drum Barracks in Los Angeles County to the Colorado River in San Bernardino County, California
