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Fort Tejon

U. S. Army outpost in California's Tejon Pass, established on August 10, 1854 to protect white settlers, as well as Indians living on the Sebastain Indian Reservation from raids by other indigenous Indians and Californios.[1]

From November 17, 1859 into April of 1860, Fort Tejon kept a shipment of camels as part of the U. S. Army's experimental camel corps, which were then removed to Benecia, California, where they were sold at auction.[2]

Relic of Fort Tejon: In Clayville,[4] New Mexico Territory in July of 1878,[5] Bret Maverick bought a "full-blooded Arabian mount" from Henry Brimmer for $200, for which Brimmer used as a stake to meet Bret's raise in a poker game. Bret believed the the mount to be an imported pure-bred mare, but soon realized it was a Bactrian camel named Fatima. Brimmer described Fatima as a relic of the Army's camel corps.[4] However, the camels imported by the Army were primarily one-humped Arabian dromedaries. Few were two-humped Asian Bactrians, and those were male camels or dromedary hybrids and did not survive beyond the duration of the Army's experiment.[6] Fatima, therefore, must have been one of many Bactrians imported into San Francisco around the same time to work as pack animals in the more mountainous mining districts of California, Nevada and Canada.[5]

Fort Tejon, 1860.[3]