14 QuartzsiteVisitorGuide.com
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 Gertru-
dis 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.
The monument was placed on the na� onal register in 2011.
Entrance to Hi Jolly Monu-
ment is off N. Kofa,
1 block north of West Main Street.
The Hi Jolly
Cemetery
is the most
visited
location
in
Quartzsite!
