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All the United States Arizona Quartzsite The Red Ghost of Quartzsite
AO Edited

The Red Ghost of Quartzsite

A scrap-metal sculpture recalls an infamous 19th-century camel.

Quartzsite, Arizona

Added By
Harry Valentine
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Quartzsite’s camel sculpture.   HarryValentine / Atlas Obscura User
  HarryValentine / Atlas Obscura User
Close-up of the camel’s head.   Ben Churchill/cc by 2.0
The body is made of wheel rims.   Ben Churchill/cc by 2.0
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About

Quartzsite, Arizona, is a small town with a thing for camels. The town’s welcome sign is adorned with camels; its graveyard is the final resting place for Hadji Ali, a camel herder for the U.S. military; and just off of the 10 freeway sits Georgette, a scrap metal camel with ties to a fascinating bit of folklore: Arizona's Red Ghost.

In the 1880s, stories spread throughout Arizona of a giant red horse with a devil on its back. The Red Ghost trampled a woman to death at one campground, tore through a second campground, and supposedly flipped over two freight wagons at a third. At the scene of each event were signs of the creature: enormous hoof marks larger than any horse, and strands of red hair.

Stories of the Red Ghost rampaging all over the territory lasted for a decade, until a farmer found it: a red camel grazing with the skeletal remains of a man strapped to its back. The camel was likely a straggler, released from Hadji Ali’s team after the government abandoned the U.S. Camel Corps. The Red Ghost mystery was mostly solved, though no one knows who roped the corpse to the camel’s back, or why. 

Quartzsite, which became known for its camel crossings, bears two reminders of that infamous ruby camel. One is a marker on top of Hadji Ali’s grave. Just around the corner and down the road from “Hi Jolly’s” grave, guarding a local gem store, stands the other. Her name is Georgette, a life-sized camel sculpture created from assorted car and motorcycle parts, and painted a deep red.

Related Tags

Sculptures Animals Legends Gems And Jewels Outsider Art Local History

Know Before You Go

The sculpture can be seen outside Gem World on Main Street, about a third of a mile from Hi Jolly's Tomb.

Community Contributors

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HarryValentine

Edited By

Martin, Meg, johnnnj

  • Martin
  • Meg
  • johnnnj

Published

April 23, 2019

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Sources
  • http://visitquartzsite.blogspot.com/p/the-flavor-of-quartzsites-year-round.html
  • https://truewestmagazine.com/red-ghost/
  • http://arizonaoddities.com/2012/06/meet-georgette-the-scrap-pile-camel-of-quartzsite/
The Red Ghost of Quartzsite
1330 W Main St
Quartzsite, Arizona
United States
33.662063, -114.239236
Get Directions

Nearby Places

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