Thursday, January 31, 2013

Hi Jolly


 
There is a monument at Quartzsite honoring a little known fact of American history.

In 1856 the US Army came up with a plan for moving freight across the “great American desert” by using camels.  Several camels were shipped over and a man named Hadji Ali was hired to be the camel driver.

His name was difficult to pronounce and he eventually became known as Hi Jolly.

This monument is the most visited site in Quartzsite and honors the short lived US Camel Corps.

When the American Civil War broke out funds were difficult to get for this project and it was abandoned.

Hadji Ali attempted to run a freight business for a time afterwards but this was not successful and eventually he released the camels into the desert to fend for themselves.

We discovered this site during a geocaching run as it was a visual cache where we had to email answers to three questions to the cache holder.

And now you know about the US Camel Corps….I wonder if there are any stray camels running around somewhere yet.

Long Live the Queen of the Camels

 

2 comments:

  1. How very interesting ... I guess you would have to know if there were any little filly camels to make babies with so there might be camels in our dessert today. I am thinking we would have heard about it by now ... right? You find the coolest things to write about. Believe it or not, I am going to keep this post short because I have to meet a friend for coffee in 45 minutes and I haven't even showered yet ... maybe I will come back to see you later. Stay warm (I'm being facetious, it is 0 degrees here today with -20 wind chill) Aren't you glad you aren't home in Wisconsin? Be well Queen of great stories ...

    Andrea @ From the Sol

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  2. Wow, I learned something new today too! I did not know about the camels, and I've never heard that any camels were found living in our deserts today. But it would be cool, wouldn't it? You have a great night now. Hugs, Edna B.

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