The best types of roadside attractions are those that are beautiful, educational, and historically significant. Quartzsite, Arizona covers all three bases with Hi Jolly’s tomb, which was dedicated in January of 1903 and completed in 1936. Hi Jolly was known for a camel experiment that was designed to make desert life easier, which you can learn all about when you stop at his burial site. Keep reading for a closer look at Hi Jolly’s Tomb.
The Camel Experiment
Getting across the desert was not always as easy as it is today, which is why Jefferson Davis imported camels into America in the mid-1800s. Davis’s goal was to use these camels to carry both people and freight across the Southwest United States, but the experiment was interrupted. There was no time to attempt this while the Civil War sprung up, so this particular experiment never came to fruition.
Hi Jolly
Hadji Ali was a Syrian who came to the United States along with the initial batch of camels that Jefferson Davis had imported, and it was his job to take care of them. Thanks to his American masters, his name transformed from Hadji Ali to Hi Jolly, which is how it reads on his tombstone today. He stayed in America despite the interruption of the experiment, and he was honored with a pyramid tomb after he died in his seventies.
A Worthy Detour
If you are passing through Quartzite, Arizona, you can still stop and see Hi Jolly’s tomb on Main Street. After the initial dedication of his tomb in 1903, a bronze plaque and a metal camel statue were added to commemorate his role in the experiment that could have been.
