2006 Sesquicentennial Camel Drive
Click here to see journals, photos, and questions and answers from the Drive.
"Hold your horses!"
This cry was sounded from the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Hill Country
150 years ago when the US Army imported camels for military use on the western frontier. It was heard
again May 20, 2006 as the modern day Texas Camel Corps reenacted this quirky bit of Texas History,
leaving Indianola headed for Camp Verde where the Sesquicentennial Camel Drive arrived June 3rd.
Participants included Doug Baum, Texas Camel Corps owner, Jim Hale of the
American Camel Company, Gilbert Tafolla Hernandez, of San Antonio, Texas, whose great-great
grandfather worked with the original US Army camels in the 1850’s and 1860’s, Ernest Geigenmiller of
San Antonio, Texas and author Frank Gonzales of Smiley, Texas.
Imported during the Pierce administration of the 1850's under then Secretary
of War Jefferson Davis, more than 100 camels called Texas home. The US military utilized the camels on
numerous road and boundary survey expeditions for packing supplies through the arid Southwest before,
during and after the Civil War. Some of the beasts even changed hands between Confederate and Union
troops as control of the Camel Corps' homebase of Camp Verde, Texas shifted from North to South.
Following the Civil War the camels were used less and less, due probably in great part to Jefferson
Davis' lack of popularity given the political climate at that time. Most of the camels were auctioned
off, ending up in private hands and later were sold to circuses and traveling menageries. The last
captive offspring of the government camels, Topsy, died in Griffith Park Zoo in Los Angeles in 1934,
and there are those who still believe feral descendants of Uncle Sam's camels still roam remote parts
of Texas, Arizona, and California.
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