Another Mine Town, Jerome, Az

This is a pan shot of Jerome, Az. This was once the 4th largest town in Arizona. It is another mining town. Let see we have been to Bisbee, and then Globe, and now we went to Jerome.

Jerome is up the mountain from Cottonwood. I found this web site to explain Jerome. From the late 1800 until 1950 this town produced massive amounts of Copper as well as other rare metals like gold. In the right of the picture you can see the tailings from the Copper mine above, but if you look below them you will see more reddish tailings and that was the Gold mine.

But like all boom towns, it also produced some mighty shady characters as well. Once called the wickedest town in the West, Jerome had quite a past. But now there are only 450 residents, and nearly as many antique, and gift shops. And many of the folks living there now are arts and crafts folks along with bed and breakfast owners, with the occasional historian mixed in for good measure.

We went to the State Park

which was in an old mansion that was owned by the Douglas family that held the mine rights before it was sold to the present owners Phelps Dodge.

This big chunk of Ore is on display next to the mansion. Wow no wonder the mine ran for 70 years of so.

We went to the sight of the old open pit mine, and one of the mine employees explained that the pit had largely been reclaimed and made into level ground. He said it cost 38 million, but I could not verify his numbers from any research.

Still they had to spend a bundle to fill in such a massive open pit hole in the ground.

We spent more than an hour in the museum, and then drove thru the narrow streets on the side of the hill. Many of the old buildings are in ruin now, and others are only slightly restored, even thou they have antique business in them today.

We drove part way up the mountain toward Prescott, as that was the way the mules took the ore in the late 1800’s before a train was built. The road is quite harrowing, with switch backs and shear drop offs. We saw worse in Colorado this summer, but still this is nasty for Arizona.

Barely visible, is the red cliffs of Sedona to the North from the top of the Jerome mine. The town of Cottonwood is down on the valley floor below. It is about 20 miles to the cliffs.

We spent the morning in Jerome and wondered about times that were much different than today. Google Jerome and read some of the fascinating stories.

Shifting gears, Loyce finished the charity lap quilt for the RV Park Quilt Show going on here, on Sunday. She has worked on this for some time, but it was put aside while we were healing from the car wreck.

The quilt is tied in the corners, as there would not be enough time to actually machine quilt it and get it back to donate to the hospitals.

She also made this project Linus fleece blanket with the crochet border.

There will be a showing on Sunday, and I will try to go get some photos of the neat stuff they have been doing here.

Retired Rod