More time travel for the nation’s 250th: Exploring BLM back country byways in Oregon and California

Almost 800 miles to the south, near the California-Arizona border, the Bradshaw Trail National Back Country Byway represents about one-third of the stagecoach and wagon road established in 1862 by prospector William D. Bradshaw.

That road was the first overland route to connect populated areas of California's west coast to the gold fields near the town of La Paz in what was then known as the U.S. New Mexico Territory and later became the Arizona Territory. Several stagecoach lines ran on the route, including the Wells Fargo Express.

A Cahuilla chief and a member of the Maricopa Tribe had told Bradshaw about an ancient trade route through the Colorado Desert, with springs and watering holes, and the prospector drew on this information to build the road. It continued to be used until 1878 and led to a population influx in Southern California's Colorado Desert region-and beyond.

The 70-mile-long stretch of the road preserved as the Bradshaw Trail National Back Country Byway is a Type 3 route, with areas of soft sand requiring four-wheel drive vehicles. It offers views of the Chuckwalla Bench, a desert forest used for millennia by the ancestors of many Native American Tribes. This woodland, along with more than 50 miles of the Byway, is now part of the Chuckwalla National Monument.

To some extent, the history that unfolded along the route must be imagined. When the gold mines were played out and La Paz became a ghost town, abandoned stage stops on the route began to disappear from view, especially with repeated grading of the dirt road.

Yet as so often happens with BLM back country byways, the historical legacies of this road live on in the names of the places where it goes.

Linda Castro, assistant policy director for Cal Wild, underscores the importance of place-names in her article on the Bradshaw Trail.

"Some historians," Castro says, "believe that the name 'Chuckwalla' came from the Cahuilla word ('chu qual') for the lizard we now call Chuckwalla."

With our BLM byways providing access to places with an enduring but not always obvious heritage, the vehicles used to travel these roads are true vehicles of discovery. They allow visitors to take not just a long drive but a deep dive-into the richly layered histories of our public lands.

As KC Craven, the BLM's National Program Lead for Recreation and Tourism Benefits, puts it, "These routes don't just offer scenic drives. They reconnect people to stories and places that have shaped our country.

"As we mark 250 years of American history, these byways help ground that history in real places people can visit today."