[Music]
hello welcome to another as I always say and they truly are special editions of
Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains as a matter of fact today we're going to
share with you the story of camels in Arizona, Marshal. The Army Corps of
topographical engineers was making a survey, survey of wagon roads
California had been acquired and people out in California were demanding
railroads but before the railroads you had to have rode the railroad wasn't
going to be built for a while and so they survey and Jefferson Davis was the
Secretary of War at the time and he was in a dilemma he was from Mississippi and
it and the logical the logical route would have been a southern route all
weather they don't get snowed in in the wintertime and the only place that had
two all-weather routes were in Arizona along the 35th parallel in the 32nd
parallel so Davis has... Davis makes it work though by putting five
transcontinental roads from Canada all the way to the Mexican border and two are
going to go right across Arizona well the one that's going to go across the
35th parallel there's a lot of land you go a long ways you got to go a long ways
without a drink of water and there's not much that browse along the way and not
any people either to deal with to supply you and so
they've got a problem and they're thinking we need a beast of burden that
can carry more Freight and baggage than a mule and can go faster than a mule and
can go a long ways without a drink of water and Jefferson Davis suggests
camels well so they imported a couple of boatloads of camels and got another
problem here the the camels refused to learn English
they're stubborn and cantankerous and they smell bad and they're ugly and they
spit yeah and they spit on you and the bad
yeah and and and the mule Skinner's have just hated him and they frightened the
horses and frightened mules and so just the premier presence of them so they
weren't too popular with the Teamsters so the logical thing to do is import
camel drivers from Middle East and the most famous of them was a fellow named
Haji Ali but they couldn't pronounce that very well so they just called him
Hi Jolly and he became Hi jolly and he was actually half Greek as he wasn't
a full-blooded Arab but anyway hi jolly loves camels he's really really
America's one first and only camel whisperer
he sings to him and they respond and the whole experiment with camels is a huge
success one they even pitted a race one time
between mules pulling a wagon and camels pulling baggage and the camels beat him
by hours to a destination and and and again they could go a long ways without
a drink and when he got and they got to the Colorado River one time coming back
from there the first trip over they were bringing it back and they were trying to
drive him across the river and the Mules drowned and they were later retrieved by
the Hualapai down below and it had a feast that night when the drowned mules
but the camels took to that water just responded and went right across that
river swimming and is and and Ned Beale lieutenant Beale who was the American
in charge with the engineers he just he just sang their praises all the time
and he was he even rode camels he thought he fancied himself as a camel
you know riding a camel and so he was a colorful guy anyway Edward Fitzgerald
Beale and so anyway the the it was a success and they surveyed the
35th parallel turned into a wagon road and the reason it zigzags so much is
they had to go from water will water hold water hole it goes straight across
from say gallop straight to Flagstaff where you've got LaRue Springs but then
it comes down the hill to Ash Fork and you've got that big Canyon there that had water
in it and then then you then they go then it Seligman they have to go way up
to Valentine hackberry and and peach springs and then they drop back down
again to Kingman now today I forty just goes straight across and the railroad
had to do the same thing because the railroad those those were water guzzlers
and you had you can only go about fifteen miles between water stops with
those smaller engines so um so that's why the the rails also followed the
springs and then they later they later when the diesels came along you didn't
have to water him so often so they changed the line and that's why we had
we that's why we left - work but anyhow they in the 1880s they built the
railroad across the Santa Fe and in in 1926 that old wagon road became route 66
so when they were done with these camels they just let him go right and so some
of them headed down the Verdi into the Salt River area is that correct
and in the end though the Civil War was looming and the government had no more
use for the camels so they sold a few at auction and then they just turned the
rest of them loose out on the deserts of Western Arizona we hear about hi jolly
but what happened to him and hi jolly he didn't go home either yeah he went
out enjoying the camels he died in 1902 and the story is is there was a he heard
that somewhat told him there was a sick camel out in the desert and he went out
to nurse this animal and they found him there the found his body there a few
days later and he and the Camel had both died and he had his arms around the
camel so he was a now is this true or yeah it's supposed to be a true story
yeah I like my yes how long before the camels
disappeared in Arizona well their descendants were founded in the 1940s at
one of the the last of the original camels they found one down in Baja
California believe it or not they met many years later so they a lot of them
lived out long lives they lived long lives anyway well there you go
Marshall talking about the camels in Arizona which maybe I shouldn't say this
but guess what day it is guess what day it is just another one of
those mysteries of the Superstition Mountains
[Music]