Preposterous Myths of The American Frontier

 January 4, 2025

   It is without a doubt, one of the more preposterous myths on the American frontier.

Daily Revised Whip Out:

"Red Ghost Revisited"

   Here is the back story.

Daily Whip Out: "Red Ghost Roots"

(shot through the glass and frame in studio)

  As the story goes, a military commander lashed a camel-shy soldier to the back of a camel and sent him off to learn how to ride. Depending on who is telling the story, the soldier either died from starvation, or embarrassment, and the camel rode around Arizona for the next thirty years with a skeleton on his back. Since the camel was rust colored, the legend of Red Ghost began. Supposedly, Red Ghost was shot dead in the 1890s while poaching from an Arizona backyard garden and he still had the rope burns on his hide.

   Frankly, I’m getting heart burn just telling the story.

   Oh, and the “Red Ghost” was allegedly finally killed in a rancher’s garden in eastern Arizona.

   I had fun doing this story for the Arizona Centennial. We did a documentary for PBS, "Outrageous Arizona," and I won an Emmy for it.

"Lying about the West in general and the Southwest in particular has been a cottage industry for over a century."

—Charles Bowden