The Camel Corps

The U.S. Army once tried to conquer the desert with camels. In 1856 the War Department imported the animals as an experiment, betting they could cross the arid Southwest better than mules, and in 1857 Lieutenant Edward Beale used them to survey a wagon road along the 35th parallel to the Colorado River, south of here. The camels performed well—tireless, needing little water—but the Civil War ended the experiment, and the survivors were sold or turned loose. For decades afterward, ranchers and prospectors reported wild camels wandering the desert, ghosts of an idea that didn't outlive the war.

What the plaque says

In 1855 Congress authorized $30,000 for camels as frontier military beast of burden because of their adaptability to desert heat, drought, and food. Lt. Edward F. Beale surveyed the wagon route from Fort Defiance, New Mexico, to the Colorado River near the tip of Nevada, testing the fitness of these camels. They crossed the Colorado River into Nevada north to Fort Mohave, October 18, 1857. The experiment was not practical, but ten of Beale's camels hauled commercial freight from Sacramento to Nevada territory. Others purchased in 1860, carried salt, ore and supplies through central Nevada. Careless treatment, domestic stock incompatibility and new transportation methods ended use of camels. Some were seen years later wandering in southwest deserts.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oatman — 21 mi
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.
• Needles — 24 mi
  Route 66's Colorado River gateway into California, anchored by El Garces, the Harvey House that Mojave hands built.
• Goffs — 27 mi
  A near-ghost on the pre-1931 Route 66 alignment, keeper of a 1914 desert schoolhouse and a WWII Army camp.

More markers nearby

• Goodsprings Mining District 1856-1957 — steps away
• The Garcés Expedition — 5.7 mi
• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 11 mi
• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 11 mi