An early road across northern Arizona followed the 35th parallel transcontinental survey and evolved from several pathfinding expeditions: Lt. Amiel W. Whipple's 1853-54 railroad survey, Lt. Edward F. Beale's 1857 military experiment using camels for transport, and the wagon road constructed by Beale in 1858-59. In 1864, Lt. Col. Jose Francisco Chavez escorted Arizona's first territorial governor, John Noble Goodwin, over this trail to establish a capital in the Prescott vicinity. In 1876, Mormon immigrants from Utah entered the Little Colorado Valley along this road.
