38 QuartzsiteVisitorGuide.com
80
A
CRES!
Get Out There
and Enjoy Your Park!
• Dog Park
• Disc Golf
• Bocci Ball
• Skate Park
• RC Air Strip
•
Horseshoes
• Snack Shack
• RC Auto Track
• Baseball Field
• Pickleball Court
• Basketball Court
• Community Center
• Metal Detecting Area
• Pavilion & Dance Slab
• Children's Playground
• Hiking - Exercise Trails
• Celia's Rainbow Gardens
QUARTZSITE
Town Park
www.QuartzsiteAZ.org
The Hi Jolly Cemetery is the most visited location in Quartzsite!
Arizona's adventure with camels began in 1855 when Jeff erson Davis, then secretary of war and
later president of the Confederacy, was sold on the idea of impor� ng camels to build and travel on
a wagon road through the Southwest. A buyer was dispatched to the Middle East where he bought
33 then loaded them on a ship modifi ed to accommodate their bulk and sailed to Indianola, Texas.
Another batch of 44 of the beasts followed. Authori� es sent to the Middle East for men who spoke
camel, and that's where Hadji Ali comes into the story. The famed camel driver was born Philip
Tedro, a Greek born in Syria. He converted to Islam and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, hence his
fi rst name, Hadji Ali.
He and another camel driver, Yiorgos Caralambo (who came to be called Greek George) were
hired to teach the soldiers how to deal with the animals. Soldiers couldn't pronounce Hadji Ali, and
he became known as Hi Jolly. The camels were a great success. They could carry two or three � mes
as much as Army mules. They could go without water for much longer than could horses or mules,
and most of the desert forage was fi ne with them.
But the Civil War intervened, Jeff erson Davis changed jobs, and without his support the project was
abandoned. Some of the camels were sold; others escaped into the wild. Hi Jolly bought two of them
and operated a freight route between the Colorado River and the mining towns of eastern Arizona for
two years.
In 1880, he became a U.S. ci� zen, started calling himself Philip Tedro and married Gertrudis
Serna of Tucson. When he re� red, he moved to Quartzsite and prospected around the region using a
mule. He died in 1902. The camels thrived for a while, but eventually died out. However, as late as the
1930s and 1940s there were unsubstan� ated reports of camels spo� ed in the wild. One story was that
of the Red Camel, which roamed the desert with a headless human skeleton on its back.
Entrance to Hi Jolly Monument is off Kofa, 1 block north of West Main Street.
