Danger, Terror, and Hardships: The Price of Yearning For the Golden West... The Beale Trail was named after the surveyor who accepted the federal government's request for a safe and speedy route across much of the Southwest for wagon trains and the pony express. California was beginning to entice Easterners and Midwesterners to seek their fortunes in the new lands. Up until Beale undertook the task of surveying and mapping such a route, travelers were at a disadvantage. Passage was extremely difficult due to mountains, deserts, and uninhabited regions without access to needed supplies, and...