14 QuartzsiteVisitorGuide.com
The Hi Jolly Cemetery is the most vis-
ited loca� on in Quartzsite!
Arizona's adventure with camels began
in 1855 when Jeff erson Davis, then sec-
retary of war and later president of the
Confederacy, was sold on the idea of im-
por� 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 accommo-
date 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 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 fi ne with them.
But the Civil War intervened, Jeff erson
Davis changed jobs, and without his sup-
port 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, start-
ed calling himself Philip Tedro and mar-
ried 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 spot-
ted 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.
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