Jerome
By Robert DeMayo
Set dramatically on the side of Mingus Mountain, the town of Jerome is propped on a thirty-degree mountainside two thousand feet above the Verde Valley. Fifteen hundred feet separates the upper-level houses from the lowest. At night the lights of Jerome twinkle enticingly above the valley after sunsets.
Before the arrival of Europeans, Indians mined minerals from the hills around Jerome. The first scouts to search the area claimed the Sinagua had made a fair hole in the mountain. They sought blue azurite for jewelry and pigments for pottery and body paint. After they left the area it simply remained silent, watching Cottonwood and the other pioneer towns as they slowly grew. But there is a spirit in Jerome that will not rest; it simply waited.
Beginning around 1876—the same year the first pioneers reached Sedona—miners started to seriously attack the rich copper reserves. Eventually a fortune in copper, as well as gold and silver was extracted. In fact, the United Verde would become the richest privately-owned copper mine in the world—producing $29 million worth of ore in one year alone.
Between 1897 and 1899 Jerome caught fire numerous times. One fire destroyed 24 saloons and 4 Chinese restaurants. But each time the residents quickly rebuilt, and by 1900 it was the fifth largest city in Arizona.
By the 1920’s Jerome became a mining boomtown with a population that peaked at 15,000. The hills surrounding the town were overrun with tents and shacks occupied by countless immigrants: Mexicans, Croatian, Welsh, etc. At the same time Sedona was a small farming community with only a few families.
The population also consisted of a fair amount of Indians (Yavapai and Tonto Apache) who had recently returned to the area after being forcibly removed. Their women got work doing laundry, while the men toiled underground.
High above the town were the company houses. On Company Row prim Victorians housed the mine’s managers and their families. If you were in Arizona during this period, Jerome was the place to make your fortune. Jenny Jerome, cousin to Eugene Jerome (who lent the town his last name), was Winston Churchills’ mother.
The average miner however had to settle for boardinghouse rooms, which were occupied corresponding to the miners’ hours—sometimes three men sharing a bed in eight hour shifts. Prostitutes rented small apartments, or brick “cribs,” which were located in back alleys behind the town’s saloons, while basements were rumored to hide opium dens.
In 1927 the “Spanish Mission” style United Verde Hospital opened. Newspapers described it as the most modern and well equipped hospital in Arizona and possibly the Western States. Not only was the hospital fireproof, it was designed to withstand the blasts of up to 100,000 pounds of dynamite set off by the mine.
Fortunes in Jerome were based on the price of copper, and after the stock market crash of 1929 the towns’ population slowly plummeted. In 1953 the last mine closed. By this time there was over 100 miles of tunnels under the city and certain sections would occasionally slide down the mountain, creeping slowly, destroying entire blocks at a time.
The townspeople were used to the fickle vagaries of fate and somehow kept the town alive for decades. Before the turn of the century, Jerome had burned down and been rebuilt three times, but eventually the residents just gave up and for more than 20 years Jerome sat quietly—the largest ghost town in America.
In the 1970’s groups of artists moved into the empty buildings and the ghost town was rebuilt as an arts community. The spectacular location—elevation 5,400 feet—attracted a variety of businesses, and slowly Jerome became what it is today, a collection of late 19th and 20th century buildings housing restaurants, saloons, B & B’s, and art galleries, all perched on a steep hillside overlooking the Verde Valley.
The town seems proud of its ghost town past with restaurants like The Haunted Burger, and The Asylum Restaurant and Lounge. The United Verde Hospital lay closed for 44 years, then reopened as The Jerome Grand Hotel. There are 30 simple rooms, many with balconies and excellent views. With its history as a hospital—and the occasional mine cave-in—its easy to see why its been featured in quite a few “most haunted” shows.
Other places worth visiting are the Jones Brewery, Paul & Jerry’s Saloon (originally the Senate Saloon 1899), and the Spirit Room Bar (the town’s liveliest bar with live music on weekends). The current population is still below 500, but this “town that wouldn’t die” is worth a visit if you’re in the area.
|
