Jerome, AZ

Located along a steep hillside full of hairpin turns and shocking drop-offs, this old ghost town has life in it yet. Once called the “Wickedest Town in the West,” Jerome was a budding city of brothels and saloons back at the turn of the century, when copper mining was king. It sounded like my kinda town! Today, it’s known for its local artists and galleries, as well as a hearty number of “haunted” locations. It also happens to be where my Great Grandfather lived and worked (in the mines).

This trip I made sure to have a little time to make the short run up the hillside to visit Jerome. Mom and I have passed it by twice now, so I really felt the need this time around. I was told, repeatedly, how steep and twisty the road is going up, so I left the trailer behind in Cottonwood to make the climb. The road itself, from Cottonwood, was not bad at all… only 8 miles and honestly only two major 180 degree turns. It is obvious on the map that if I were to come from the other direction, over the hill, things would not have been so nice. And, in the town itself it would have been near impossible to tow a trailer any larger than the little one I am currently pulling. Parking would have been out of the question, so I was happy to have left it behind.

My first stop was the Jerome State Historic Park featuring the Douglas Mansion, built in 1916 by the Douglas family on top of a hill overlooking the Little Daisy Mine. While I find little interest in a rich guy’s mansion, it did have a few photographs of the miners hanging on the wall. As I looked at them I couldn’t help but wonder if my Great Grandfather was in one of those pictures.

Down the hillside is an area once known as ‘Daisy Town’. Daisy Town was a 30-home community of the Hispanic miners who worked in the mines, and where (I am told) that my Great Grandfather lived. Not much is left of Daisy Town other than a few piles of rocks.

Just outside of the Mansion grounds is one of the shafts leading down into the mine. A 1300 foot straight drop shaft, large enough only to fit a single man in a basket. It must have taken nerves of steel to get in that basket and be lowered down a quarter-mile shaft without anything but rock walls on all four sides. The men who did this were true hero’s, at least to the rich Douglas family living in the mansion. Without these hero’s, the Douglas family may not have been so rich :)

I strolled the town itself, looking that the original buildings now taken over by modern-day “artists”. Sure, some are artists, but I think the word is being a tick loose now-a-days. Much like Tombstone, AZ the place has been over run with people who call themselves an artist because they can glue some plastic eyes that jiggle on a few rocks to earn a quick buck. I found little worthy of lifting my camera for and was happy to leave town to head back to Cottonwood to relax.