USA Arizona Jerome Former copper mining town now only lightly populated and mainly an artists colony
A mining camp named Jerome was established on the side of Cleopatra Hill in 1883. It was named for Eugene Murray Jerome, aNew York investor who owned the mineral rights and financed mining there. Eugene Jerome never visited his namesake town. Jerome wasincorporated as a town on 8 March 1889. The town housed the workers in the nearby United Verde Mine, which was to produce over 1 billion dollars in copper, gold and silver over the next 70 years. 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. Jerome had three major fires between 1897 and 1899, burning out much of the town. The 1899 fire prompted Jerome to reincorporate as a city, and to adopt a building code specifying brick or masonry construction, as well as improving the fire companies. Despite these changes, the large and luxurious Montana Hotel, built of brick, burned in 1915. In 1918 fires spread out of control over 22 miles of underground mines, burning the inflammable massive pyrite. One of the mine fires continued to burn for twenty years. This prompted the phasing out of underground mining in favor of open pit mining at the United Verde. By 1929 Jerome's population was over 15,000. Arizona had become the nation's leading copper-producer. Today Jerome is a tourist destination, with many abandoned and refurbished buildings from its boom town days. Jerome has a large mining museum, presenting the town history, labor-management disputes, geological structure models, mineral samples, and equipment used in both underground and open-pit mining. Jerome is known as an art destination, with more than 30 galleries and working studios.
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Photo credit: © Mike Kipling Photography / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: arizona, jerome, main, mining, street, town, usa
