California’s Camel Experiment
In 2016 My family went out to Virginia City in Nevada to check out The Camel and Ostrich Races.
It was there that I got to ride a camel myself. Within a few years I was beginning my study on the notorious bandit Black Bart. While at a museum in Calaveras, California I read a story that I wrote in my notebook that had to do with camels. I thought it was interesting, something to look into sometime. Well apparently there is a ton to unpack about Camels in the West. About a hundred years worth, taking us from just before the civil war to the very first Camel race of Virginia City.
A book written by a guy named Abbe Huc called "Travels in Tartary, Tibet and China, During the Years 1844, 1845 and 1846" was published and found its way to America. In this book the author describes the use of camels for traveling and the usefulness of these interesting animals. Soon Those in The United States Government got a grand idea.
The year was now 1853 and Jefferson Davis, who at the time was The Secretary of War under President Pierce Advocated for Congress to buy a bunch of camels for an experiment to see how camels would do in the southwest desert lands. Sure enough after a few years 30,000 dollars was put aside for…
“The purchase and importation of camels and dromedaries to be employed for military purposes”
Pictured is Edward Beale
While this was going on another guy named Gwin was pushing the book to his buddy Edward Beale pushing the idea of camels relentlessly. Beale thought it was a stupid idea and kept pushing the book away.
Beale will be an important figure in this story but for now lets go back to Jefferson Davis, he put it up to a Major Wayne to go to Europe and Africa to study the camels, he loved them and bought a bunch and shipped them to Texas.
Now I have to mention, an article I read by National Geographic claims there was an alterior motive for bringing the camels to the United States and it was for an underground slave trade since the slave trade was banned by the US back in 1808 these smelly camels would hide the slaves that were being transported down in the bottom of the ships. I'm sure its possible that this happened seeing as the people who spearheaded this experiment would go on to be confederates, Davis being the President of the Confederacy but I think it was more of a "added bonus" to them if anything.
Now, in 1857 we get a new president, Buchanan. Davis was no longer the Secretary of War and people were worried the Camel experiment would get cancelled. The new Secretary of War, John B. Floyd liked the idea, so he continued on with it. Major Wayne then took the camels up to Camp Verde in Texas. Beale; the guy I mentioned earlier, was a well known guy, he was the one who brought the first gold nugget from California to Washington DC and was known for his part during Mexican American War. Now he was a surveyor and was contracted by the Government to make a road to Los Angeles from New Mexico. Beale gladly accepted but when he was reading the fine print he saw something that really ticked him off. He was to take 25 camels along with him.
Beale was mad. he hated the idea and wrote back and forth arguing with Mr. Floyd but lost. So he trekked out to camp Verde got the stupid camels and started on his way to create the wagon road he was hired to make.
The people hired to go along with him were mostly Greek who didnt have a clue on how to deal with camels but he had a few camel handlers too so that was good.
In the beginning, the camels were slow and took hours longer to get places than horses and mules. but as time went on The camels adapted and started to outperform the horses in every way. They could carry 700 pounds easy and remained steady. They went through all kinds of terrain that the horses and mules didn't much care for and would eat whatever you gave them and would go days without needing any water unlike the horses and mules. They were quiet and didn't fuss, they did well in the extreme heat and they were experts at finding water when needed. Beale went on to write…
“I believe at this time I may speak for every man in our party, when I say that there is not one of them who would not prefer the most indifferent of our camels to four of our best mules.”
Obviously the camels won over Beale
Beale was afraid of crossing rivers with the camels becasue he was told they couldn't swim but sure enough they crossed better than the horses none of them drowned while a few of the horses did.
After about 4 and a half months they finished the road and made it to LA
Both the Sante Fe Railroad and Route 66 follow this old wagon road.
Now, with the job completed, Beale headed up north of Los Angeles to Fort Tejon.
He was told to bring the camels to New Mexico from there but he didn't want to. So he made up an excuse telling the government that the camels would be invaluable to the Californian army if they needed to fight in the Mormon War. He then gave about half of the camels to his business partner and then went back home with the other half. His business partner took the camels that belonged to the government to his private ranch and used them to haul freight
Floyd announced that the camel experiment was a success and that the military should get 1,000 camels at once. Congress disagreed and told him no. He kept asking for more camels for a couple years but the civil war pretty much killed all pet projects.
in 1859 Beale was called on again to go back and improve the road because emigrants and travelers complained that it was confusing and not all as great as Beale had said. He was given another 25 camels to do that
But let's stay in California for now.
Beales' business partner had run ins with the Mojave Indians from time to time and one day a huge band of them was seen and looked like they were ready for war. Either the business partner or the camel handler (there's conflicting accounts of this story) mounted up on a camel, had the other laborers do the same and they charged at the Mojave who freaked out and they ran away.
Later on the army set up an experiment to see how they would do with mail delivery so Fort Tejon became the Terminus of the first ever Camel Express. It was an epic failure though, camels are slow and steady not designed for running like a horse so 2 out of 2 attempts resulted in the camel dropping dead from exhaustion.
From there the Camels were used to try and map the Nevada/California border but the people leading it kept getting lost so that was a fail. From then on the Camels were being tossed around like a game of hot potato. Nobody knew what to do with them and eventually they just sat around for 3 years wasting away and using up government resources.
By 1863 we were in a civil war and had a new president, Lincoln and his War Secretary decided to sell the camels off.
Fun fact: Confederates took over Camp Verde in Texas which still had a bunch of camels and so they used the camels for their own camel express, for hauling freight and also used one during the siege of Vicksburg but it was shot and killed in battle.
Anyways, Camel fever if you could call it that, spread around California, some businessmen bought a bunch of camels from china and sold them in San Francisco.
All these camels went to different places the mines, the circus the zoo...
The military camels though were bought by a guy named McLeneghan who gave 3 to a friend who ran a circus in Sacramento and he used to rest to haul freight to Nevada. Before doing that though he held a "dromedary race" in 1864. Dromedary is a one humped camel while the two humped one is the real camel. This race got a lot of attention and was like watching a Charlie Chaplin movie. The people loved it and the money that was raised was given to charity.
Soon most of the camels made it to Nevada where a bunch of them were used for silver mining in the Comstock Lode. Some of you might know that mining back then required heating and smashing the ore then mixing it with mercury and salt. This was the camels' job trek out to the salt marsh and bring back a ton of salt and repeat. The poor camels were dying doing this job and soon a cyanide process replaced the salt process so the camels were disposed of. Either by making them into food like jerky or taking them out to the desert throwing a tennis ball out as far as they could, yelling fetch and abandoning them.
This resulted in Nevadan wild camels which roamed around and blocked roadways often enough that Nevada made it against the law for camels to be on the highway.
Fast forward all the way to 1959. A guy named Robert Richards wrote a fake article about The Virginia City Camel Races in The Territorial Enterprise newspaper.
It turns out The San Francisco Chronicle reprinted the article and later realized it was all a joke. So the editor of the Chronicle challenged the Enterprise to hold a camel race for real, they sent some camels and the Hollywood Director John Huston Jockeyed the first race and won.
From then on Virginia City has hosted The International Camel & Ostrich Races every September.
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