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Jerome, Arizona History
Jerome Arizona's history is
rich with copper mining.
See Historic
Jerome Photos.
A
mining camp named Jerome
was established
atop "Cleopatra Hill" in 1883.
It was named for Eugene Murray
Jerome,
a New York investor
who owned the
mineral rights
and financed mining there.
Eugene Jerome never visited his
namesake town. Jerome was incorporated
as a town on March 8, 1889. The town
housed the workers in the nearby United
Verde Mine, which was said to produce over 1 billion dollars in
ore over the next 70 years.
Jerome was reincorporated as
a city in 1899 and a building
code
specifying brick or masonry
construction instituted to end the
frequent fires that
had
repeatedly
burned up sections of the town
previously.
Jerome became a notorious
"wild west" town, a hotbed of
prostitution, gambling,
and vice. On 5 February
1903, the New York Sun
proclaimed Jerome to be "the
wickedest town in the West".
In
1915 the population of
Jerome was estimated at 2,500.Great Jerome Fire
In 1918 fires spread out of control
over 22 miles of underground mines. This prompted the end of underground mining in favor of open pit mining.
For decades dynamite was used to open
up pits in the area, frequently shaking the town and sometimes
damaging or moving buildings; after
one blast in the 1930s the city
jail slid one block down hill intact.
In the late 1920s Jerome's population
was over 15,000Mining decline and
closure
Deserted buildings in the Gold King
Mine and Ghost Town, northwest of Jerome.
In 1953 the last of Jerome's mines
closed, and much of the population
left town. Jerome's population reached
a low point of about 50 people in the
late 1950s.
To read more about Jerome
try They Came To Jerome, a great book
that is quite comprehensive around Jerome's
history.
To read about Jerome's main
characters such as William Clark and Mr. Jerome
himself, try Ghosts of Cleopatra Hill.
To read about Jerome's
railroads, try Verde Valley Railroads. |
