The Meeker Herald Feb. 18, 1899, edition reported: “The last wild camel in the United States died the other day. While full particulars of the event are not at hand, it is probable death was caused by the last straw breaking his back.” I am not quite sure how much of this was real news or just tongue-in-cheek. The same column quoted, “The man who keeps his mouth shut seldom acquires a reputation as a liar.”
The first article did tickle my memory of camels in the American Southwest. Sure enough, there were sightings of feral camels in Arizona as late as 1890. They were believed to have been descendants of some Army beasts of burden that escaped and were running amok in the American desert. The story starts in September 1850 when the territory of New Mexico was created. The U.S. had acquired a huge plot of land accessible only by inhospitable trails. There was a wagon road to Santa Fe, but not much leading west to California and the gold fields. The idea of using camels as pack animals was suggested.
One of the listeners was Senator Jefferson Davis. Congress had no interest in an experiment using camels in the Southwest as military transport but in 1853, Davis was appointed U.S. Secretary of War. Davis sent Major Henry C. Wayne and Lt. David Dixon Porter on a shopping trip to the Middle East to bring back camels for the U.S. army. On May 14, 1856, the officers unloaded 34 animals, saddles, packs and some camel drivers they had recruited to care for them. Everyone left the port of Indianola, Texas, and traveled through San Antonio to Camp Verde, Texas, northwest of San Antonio.
Most of the animals were dromedary (Arabian one-humped camels). A few were Bactrian (two-humped camels) and one Booghdee (a cross between a male Bactrian and a female dromedary — I wonder if it had one and a half humps). A second voyage yielded another 41 camels, nine men and a boy.
The Army still needed a new wagon road from Ft. Defiance (now in eastern Arizona) to the Grand River (now the Colorado River) and awarded the survey contract to former Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale. The Army sent along 25 camels from Texas. This was a bit of a surprise to Beale, but he took it in stride. Beale later reported that the camels exceeded his expectations. “I [Beale] would rather have one camel than four mules.” High praise for such an ugly animal with a questionable personality. Some of the camels were sent 1,200 miles from Ft. Verde to stay near Los Angeles, California.
I didn’t find any references to reactions from spectators. The caravan would have traveled through former Spanish lands, Apache and Navajo territories. Imagine some young Native American returning home from a hunting trip. “Hey, Ma. I saw theses weird five-foot-tall horses with a long necks and saddle packs between two huge saddle horns. They were traveling with a bunch of soldiers and some guys dressed in white nightgowns and blankets around their heads. What is this country coming to?”
The Civil War in 1861 put the whole experiment on hold. The Confederates captured Ft. Verde, but they couldn’t figure out what to do with the camels. They didn’t kill them, probably because Jefferson Davis, then president of the Confederate States of America, had a personal interest in the camels. The fort was retaken late in the war, but the Union had lost its interest in the camels for the same reason. The Army held an auction in February 1864 and sold 66 of the remaining camels. That must have been a unique Army surplus sale. Old green ammo boxes, used uniforms, swords and 66 camels. The wild camels didn’t have numbers or resources to sustain a herd, unlike the wild horses of the West. The camels just rode away, to become legends of the Southwest.
I have heard rumors of a pet camel in Rio Blanco at one time. Would anyone with information contact me? It would make a great story.
Sources: Smithsonianmag.org: Jefferson Davis’ Camel Experiment by Prof. Walter L. Fleming, Louisiana University reprinted in Popular Science Feb 1909
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald times
I wrote in Candy Baxter’s post on FB that my father, Tom Moore, did have a pet camel in the Meeker area in the ‘70s and 80s named Humphrey. There was an article in the Meeker paper about it , which I’ll try and find.