POST #21-12

A Climb To Jerome 

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It's been cool and rainy here at Dead Horse Ranch State Park the last few days...

But today, December 11th, it stopped for awhile so we took a short trip to nearby Jerome, AZ.   a short trip of about 10 miles....

  

We gained about 2500 feet in altitude on that short and winding drive....a video of the drive can be seen HERE.  Watch and see!  It was quite the drive to a very interesting place!

Jerome is a town in the Black Hills of Yavapai County, Arizona. 

Founded in the late 19th century on Cleopatra Hill overlooking the Verde Valley, Jerome is located more than 5,000 feet above sea level. It is about 100 miles north of Phoenix along State Route 89A between Sedona and Prescott. Supported in its heyday by rich copper mines, it was home to more than 10,000 people in the 1920s...

The small adjacent mining camp on Cleopatra Hill was named Jerome in honor of Eugene Jerome, who became the company secretary.  United Verde built a small smelter at Jerome and constructed wagon roads from it to Prescott, the Verde Valley, and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad depot at Ash Fork. However, transport by wagon was expensive, and in late 1884 after the price of copper had fallen by 50 percent, the company ceased all operations at the site.  Four years later, William A. Clark (one of the Butte and Anaconda Copper Kings), who had made a fortune in mining and commercial ventures in Montana, bought the United Verde properties and, among other improvements, enlarged the smelter, and expanded the mining. 

Meanwhile, a subsidence problem that had irreparably damaged at least 10 downtown buildings by 1928 worsened through the 1930s. Dozens of buildings, including the post office and jail, were lost as the earth beneath them sank away. Contributing causes were geologic faulting in the area, blast vibrations from the mines, and erosion.  One of the more famous buildings, The Sliding Jail, was rendered unusable but not completely destroyed by earth movements since the 1930s, the jail is about 200 feet downhill from where it was originally built.

 

Mining continued at a reduced level in the Verde District until 1953, when Phelps Dodge shut down the United Verde Mine and related operations. 

Jerome's population subsequently fell below 100.  To prevent the town from disappearing completely, its remaining residents turned to tourism and retail sales. They organized the Jerome Historical Society in 1953 and opened a museum and gift shop.  As of the 2010 census, its population was 444. It is now known for its tourist attractions, such as its Gold King Mine and Ghost Town and local wineries.

Jerome is cool and we want to go back before we leave if it clears up a bit.  The Wikipedia Page about it is very interesting!

As we were heading back down we got pulled over!  The Police Officer, you see him in the black SUV on the left, thought we should have stopped to let the Dodge pickup (who also happened to be from Montana) back out into the street...Video below...

We didn't get a citation, we thanked him for his service and went on our way back to the RV!

Hope we can get back up there before we move further south on the 15th!

Until Next Time!