Jerome, Arizona: Ghost Town USA still alive and worth it

Jerome, Arizona---Ghost town, USA can be found in Jerome, Arizona. Once a town of 15,000, it grew to be the fifth largest cities in Arizona. This was in 1929 when the town’s vast copper deposits were at its production peak. 100 miles of mining tunnels could be found beneath the city at one time.

It all had started in 1876 when three prospectors staked claims on rich copper deposits and later sold out to the United Verde Copper Company which folded in a couple years. They found it was too expensive to get the minerals out of the mountains. But then came a new owner and the financial resources to bring in a railroad.  The financial resources came from a New York investor who agreed to financing the investment in exchange for the town being named after him. It is said he never once visited the town with his name sake.

The investment was worth it for anyone who was involved when it all came together. Over those years, 600 million pounds of copper, 800 tons of silver and 28 tons of gold were mined in Jerome.

Jerome's rise to it's glory days came with a reputation. The New York Sun called it "the wickedest city in the West." Because the streets zig-zag along the mountain, the next street that is literally down from Main is the Cribs District or as a plaque said the cut between the two was known as "Husband's Alley".  Brothels and bordellos could be found everywhere so the town decided to be more civilized and banned them from Main Street so they relocated a stone's throw away. 

The Great Depression and running low on ore deposits brought Jerome’s mining days to an end in 1953.

Today the population is close to 500 from a low of 50. But the charm of the town built into the side of a mountain caused me to pull over immediately and find out what this place was all about. It’s elevation is one mile high. (There are jokes there that I will ignore.) So my first stop was at the Mile High Grill and Inn, “a 7 room, Romantic B&B” as stated in their brochure. (Again more jokes, I just can’t help myself.) I simply ordered a cup of coffee and an English muffin so that I could gaze out of the window that overlooked the tiny town strip and down the mountain on to the panoramic view of what would be the red rocks that were my destination. What arrived was a fresh homemade muffin and homemade strawberry, raspberry and pomegranate mixed jam. I love overachievers, especially in restaurants.

I walked the main street with my coffee and since I had left the Phoenix suburb at 5:30 am, it was only 8-ish and the town was just waking up and shops were opening their doors.  The first shop I walked into I was greeted by a very large and friendly dog. I started talking to the woman running the shop that turned out to really interesting and proud of the area. Two things I have found in “the west”: Dogs are totally accepted. Smoking is NOT. And people are really excited and proud of where they live.  ---okay, that was three but they were all important.

Jo, turned out to be around my age and a good story teller. She had discovered Arizona and continued to return. Finally she ended up moving here. I asked about Sedona verses the Grand Canyon and her response was that the Grand Canyon was hard to get your mind around because it was so vast, but Sedona was contained as well as something you could touch. Meaning hiking and climbing was easy there. ---I deduced that you could fall and be hurt compared to falling and dying.

I told her what I was doing driving across the U.S. and she said she would really like to do something like that except that her old car would never make it, and pointed to something red and dusty that could be seen out the window.

I decided to walk the rest of town and return if I decided to buy the tiny coin purse that I really, really badly needed. A-humm.



The rest of the street was full of cafés and shops that focused on local artists that found inspiration from the area. The “Ghost town” was down the road and Jo had described it as a bunch of old buildings. There was also a   
State Historic Park that was an old mansion of one of the major mine owners. As well as preserving some rooms of the mansion, it showed the history of the mining area including a pretty corny video, featuring a “ghost miner” that was still worth seeing. 
When I decided to return to Cleopatra’s, the shop where Jo worked, I pulled in and noticed that the old car she had referred to as hers was a vintage red convertible Mustang. I wanted to go running back in and scream “let’s be Thelma and Louise!” but that movie didn’t end so well, plus I would look crazy so I calmly paid for the coin purse and left.  She said that I now had a friend there if I needed a place to crash. I said the same about Florida and left.

I love this place.

Looking back at Jerome from the state park.