14 QuartzsiteVisitorGuide.com
The Hi Jolly Cemetery is the most visited
loca�on in Quartzsite.
Arizona's adventure with camels began in
1855 when Jefferson Davis, then secretary
of war and later president of the Confed-
eracy, 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 modified 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 con-
verted to Islam and made a pilgrimage to
Mecca, hence his first 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 be-
came 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 fine with them.
But the Civil War intervened, Jefferson Da-
vis 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 oper-
ated a freight route between the Colorado
River and the mining towns of eastern Ari-
zona 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 pros-
pected 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.
En-
trance to Hi Jolly Monument is off Kofa, 1
block north of West Main Street.
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