In the years following the Mexican War and the Gadsden Purchase the United States was planning to survey a wagon road along the 35th Parallel that would suffice until railroads could be built. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis wanted to test the feasibility of using camels as beasts of burden across the waterless high desert land.
When the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers imported 34 camels in the spring of 1856 to survey the wagon road from Albuquerque to Los Angeles the mule lobby in Mi
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