Clay Beauford (born Welford Chapman Bridwell; September 27, 1846 – February 1, 1905) was an American army officer, scout and frontiersman.

[1] He and Clum are credited for the capture of Geronimo at Ojo Caliente in 1877 and he is largely responsible for turning the San Carlos police into one of the most respected law enforcement agencies in the Southwestern United States during the frontier era.

A popular pioneering figure during his lifetime, Beauford was briefly elected to Arizona's territorial legislature in 1885 to represent Graham County.

Beauford was born Welford Chapman Bridwell[1][2][3][4] in Washington County, Maryland on September 27, 1846,[5][6][7] and later moved with his family to neighboring Virginia.

Within a year of his enlistment, he received honorable mention from his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Duncan, for bravery at the Battle of Prairie Dog Creek on September 26, 1869.

[12] Beauford remained with the 5th Cavalry throughout his military career and had risen to the rank of first sergeant by the time he was posted to the Arizona Territory three years later.

[17][18] Beauford, who had a "no-nonsense, hands-on, approach to supervision and administration",[19] worked well with Clum to establish the San Carlos police force as an independent agency from the U.S. Army.

Failing to kill John Clum and an agency clerk at the main building, Disalin made a last desperate bid to gun down the police chief.

[23][24] Four months later, while investigating reports of intruders "prowling about the western border", he and a group of reservation police officers were involved in a gun battle which left 16 renegade Apaches dead.

[9] On April 21, 1877, he headed the 102-man Apache police force, accompanied by John Clum, which captured Geronimo at Ojo Caliente[22][23][24][26][27] and oversaw the subsequent transfer of the Warm Springs (or Mimbres) band to San Carlos, both occurring without violence from either side.

[9] Beauford became a cattle rancher after leaving the San Carlos reservation, establishing a homestead in Aravaipa Canyon he called "Spring Gardens".

Author and historian Dan L. Thrapp described Beauford in his Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography as being "tall, slender, broad-shouldered, companionable, could sing a ballad to his own banjo accompaniment, and fairly well controlled 'a quick and violent temper'.

[8][28] He had a brief political career being elected to the council (or "upper house") of Arizona's territorial legislature[13] as a delegate for Safford, Graham County in the 13th Assembly[2] in 1885.

While drinking in the saloon, he was approached by a French-born lobbyist for the Arizona Copper Company in Clifton, Professor Arnold, who "cast aspersions" on Beauford for renouncing his presumed French heritage by changing his name.