Quartzsite Visitor Guide 2018
Quartzsite, Arizona Calendar of Events, Business Directory, Camping info, Things to see & Do Around Quartzsite
Quartzsite, Arizona Calendar of Events, Business Directory, Camping info, Things to see & Do Around Quartzsite
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The Hi Jolly Cemetery is the most visited<br />
locaon in <strong>Quartzsite</strong>!<br />
Arizona’s adventure with camels began<br />
in 1855 when Jefferson Davis, then secretary<br />
of war and later president of the<br />
Confederacy, was sold on the idea of imporng<br />
camels to build and travel on a<br />
wagon road through the Southwest.<br />
A buyer was dispatched to the Middle<br />
East where he bought 33 then loaded<br />
them on a ship modified to accommodate<br />
their bulk and sailed to Indianola,<br />
Texas. Another batch of 44 of the beasts<br />
followed. Authories sent to the Middle<br />
East for men who spoke camel, and that’s<br />
where Hadji Ali comes into the story. The<br />
famed camel driver was born Philip Tedro,<br />
a Greek born in Syria. He converted to<br />
Islam and made a pilgrimage to Mecca,<br />
hence his first name, Hadji Ali.<br />
He and another camel driver, Yiorgos<br />
Caralambo (who came to be called Greek<br />
George) were hired to teach the soldiers<br />
how to deal with the animals. Soldiers<br />
couldn’t pronounce Hadji Ali, and he became<br />
known as Hi Jolly. The camels were<br />
a great success. They could carry two or<br />
three mes as much as Army mules. They<br />
could go without water for much longer<br />
than could horses or mules, and most of<br />
the desert forage was fine with them.<br />
| S S RAIN G-B<br />
G-B<br />
But the Civil War intervened, Jefferson<br />
Davis changed jobs, and without his support<br />
the project was abandoned. Some<br />
of the camels were sold; others escaped<br />
into the wild. Hi Jolly bought two of them<br />
and operated a freight route between the<br />
Colorado River and the mining towns of<br />
eastern Arizona for two years.<br />
In 1880, he became a U.S. cizen, started<br />
calling himself Philip Tedro and married<br />
Gertrudis Serna of Tucson. When he<br />
rered, he moved to <strong>Quartzsite</strong> and prospected<br />
around the region using a mule.<br />
He died in 1902. The camels thrived for a<br />
while, but eventually died out. However,<br />
as late as the 1930s and 1940s there were<br />
unsubstanated reports of camels spotted<br />
in the wild. One story was that of the<br />
Red Camel, which roamed the desert with<br />
a headless human skeleton on its back.<br />
Entrance to Hi Jolly Monument is off<br />
Kofa, 1 block north of West Main Street.<br />
14 <strong>Quartzsite</strong><strong>Visitor</strong><strong>Guide</strong>.com