Trick or treat: It’s the legendary Red Camel of Death

First published in 2012

Today we have a good Arizona story, just in time for Halloween.

As I am sure you know, there was a time around the 1850s that the U.S. Army and some private enterprises used camels to haul freight across our burning deserts.

I’ve always thought that camels, spring training and Fall Instructional League baseball were the best ideas that ever came out of Arizona.

Have you ever been to an Instructional League game? I recommend it. Admission is cheap, you can sit wherever you want, and you relax in the autumn sun with a beer and a hot dog and watch a bunch of kids you may or may not ever hear of again play baseball.

Why else would you move here? OK, the weather is mostly pretty good. Or maybe you moved here to vote for people my colleague Laurie Roberts charitably refers to as kooks.

But centuries from now, when the archaeologists dig our Arizona out of the drifting sands, they will no doubt marvel and say to one another, “This must have been a highly sophisticated society. They played baseball almost year around. Too bad about the kooks.” But I digress.

As you no doubt know, when the Civil War broke out, most of the troops got sent back East and, for the most part, the camels were forgotten. Except for the Red Camel of Death. Legend says the Red Camel of Death roamed the deserts with a headless human skeleton strapped to its back.

See why this story is just in time for Halloween? You can dress your trick-ortreaters up as the Red Camel of Death.

Old-timers say the Red Camel of Death still roams our outback, cursed forever by its grisly load.

Not really, but I thought that would make the story more interesting.

The story ends with this: Sometime in 1893, a farmer shot and killed Arizona’s last camel — the Red Camel of Death or maybe some other poor beast — because it was trampling his melon patch.