New Discovery! Dead Camel Jasper
by Philip Stephenson
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Whatever Happened to the Wild Camels of the American West
Whatever Happened To The Wild Camels Of The American West
Taken partly from an article by (Chris
Heller
smithsonian.com)
To read the complete article click below http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/whatever-happened-wild-camels-american-west-180956176/
"In
1855, under the direction of then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis,
Congress appropriated $30,000 for "the purchase and importation of
camels and dromedaries to be employed for military purposes." Davis
believed that camels were key to the country's expansion westward; a
transcontinental railroad was still decades away from being built,
and he thought the animals could be well suited to haul supplies
between remote military outposts. By 1857, after a pair of
successful trips to the Mediterranean and the Middle East,
the U.S. Army had purchased and imported 75 camels. Within a decade,
though, each and every one would be sold at auction." "A crazed, wild monster roaming the Arizona desert — fit snugly within the shadow of the camel experiment.
In the 1880s, a wild menace haunted
the Arizona territory. It was known as the Red Ghost, and its legend
grew as it roamed the high country. It trampled a woman to death in
1883. It was rumored to stand 30 feet tall. A cowboy once tried to
rope the Ghost, but it turned and charged his mount, nearly killing
them both. One man chased it, then claimed it disappeared right
before his eyes. Another swore it devoured a grizzly bear. Months after the first attacks, a group of miners spotted the Ghost along the Verde River. As Trimble explained in Arizonian, his book about folk tales of the Old West, they took aim at the creature. When it fled their gunfire, something shook loose and landed on the ground. The miners approached the spot where it fell. They saw a human skull lying in the dirt, bits of skin and hair still stuck to bone. Several years later, a rancher near Eagle Creek spotted a feral, red-haired camel grazing in his tomato patch. The man grabbed his rifle, then shot and killed the animal. The Ghost’s reign of terror was over. News
spread back to the East Coast, where the New York Sun
published a colorful report about the Red Ghost's demise: 'When the
rancher went out to examine the dead beast, he found strips of
rawhide wound and twisted all over his back, his shoulders, and even
under his tail.' Something, or someone, was once lashed onto the
camel." (1) (2)
"Legend of the Red Ghost"
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Dead
Camel and Red Falcon Rough For Sale