JEROME: ONE OF A KIND
Then there’s oddball, lovable Jerome, truly a must-visit little town if there ever was one. Perched on Cleopatra Hill just fifteen minutes or so from Cottonwood, this goofy and endearing village scatters across the mountains, sometimes so precariously you don’t know how it stops from slipping into the Verde Valley below. In fact, as is evident from buildings such as the Sliding jail, it’s not an entirely academic question. In this mile-high-or-so town, narrow roads overlook a broad panorama, the valley laid out below in all its splendor, Sedona clearly visible in the distance. Called “The Wickedest Town in the West” by the New York Sun in 1903, Jerome’s streets are now lined with galleries, as the arts have transformed this town, but more on that later.
First, I check into Hillside House Vacation Rental, and I can’t imagine a more comfortable place to spend your time In Jerome. With one entire floor of the house, you’ll feel like you’ve moved to Jerome, if only temporarily. A large living room is the perfect place to relax and look out at the hillsides and distant mountains, while the bedroom is commodious and comfy. A small kitchen gives you everything you need to have your coffee or meal at home, while the flagstone patio out back lures you to sit forever gazing out over those vistas. It’s just a fif- teen-minute walk or so to town (it’s pretty much straight uphill, but oh is that walk back home a breeze!). Another great choice, right on the edge of town, is the Surgeon’s House Bed and Breakfast, with nicely appointed suites, gorgeous gardens, and equally gorgeous breakfasts.
The first order of business is coffee. Luckily, I find a nice little take- out place right on Main Street. Coppertown Coffee and Gelato produces the best espresso I’ve had in ages, which I enjoy sitting on a bench on a fairly deserted early morning Main Street. Nothing much is open yet, so I decide to follow up my espresso with a good breakfast, and for this I suggest the Mine Café, on a side street just steps off Main Street. With choices running the gamut from a Hippy Town Scramble to a Killer Cowboy Breakfast, you’re sure to find something you like, and the two packed rooms show its popularity with both tourists and locals. Like most spots in town, it’s open only for breakfast and lunch, and my Ole Verde Burrito (scrambled eggs, chicken, potatoes, guacamole) hits the spot and gets me going for the day.
The Rugged Skyline of Jerome, Arizona
Photo: Rich Rubin
While I wait for the galleries to open (one thing to know about Jerome is that many places open pretty much when they want to, and it’s not surprising to see signs saying “Open 10-ish to 5-ish”), I head to the Mine Museum, which packs a ton of information about the town into a few tiny rooms. I honestly didn’t expect the museum to be as interesting as it is, but when you’re dealing with a history as wild as Jerome’s, there’s going to be a lot of great stuff. It’s right on Main Street, in a building that once housed “the leading sporting house in all of Northern Arizona,” with a stage for music, gambling, a bar that sold 150 kegs of beers in a week, and a separate room “for ladies and families.”
Photos, minerals, narrative signage, and even a re-created mine tunnel tell the story of this unique town, built around the United Verde Mine and once a bustling mecca of saloons, brothels, and gaming joints. Named after Eugene Jerome (whose cousin, Jennie Jerome Churchill, was Winston’s mother), the town saw its heyday in the late nineteenth/early twentieth cen- tury when the mine was in full swing extracting copper, silver, and gold from the nearby hills. I find photos of noted madam Jennie Bauters with her “girls,” admire cases of malachite, copper, and Apache gold mined in Jerome, see a copper towel warmer from a turn of the century local barber shop. At its height, Jerome was a thriving town, but the mine closure in 1953 changed all that, reducing the town’s population to around fifty people. The revival came about, as it so often does, when the artists started moving in, and within a few years Jerome had a second life as an artists’ mecca. As it’s been reincarnated as a tourist/arts destination, it’s amazingly busy for a town that still has under five hundred residents.
It also has a reputation as a haunted town, and you’ll see this reflected in the Jerome Ghost Tours that are a tourist highlight. The hilltop isolation and wicked history seem ready made for spectral adventures, and the tours don’t disappoint. You’ll be given special ghost-hunting equipment while your guide takes you to all the famously haunted spots, regaling you with tales not only of the spooky goings-on but of Jerome’s unique history. It’s a little kitschy, a little informative, and a lot of fun!
Photo: Nick Fox
You can find out more about this intriguing past at the Jerome State Historic Park, where the former Douglas Mansion (home of a mine executive) now holds displays on the history of the area, while the outdoor space gives you plenty of fresh-air moments and fabulous vistas back (or should I say, UP) to town. On the way, make a stop at the Audrey Headframe Park, where you can look down into the shaft of this mine (an extension of the United Verde mine), 1900 feet in depth (by comparison, a sign tell us, the Empire State Building is 1250 feet). The elevator contraption ridden by the miners is truly an eye-opener, as I think about a whole group of miners plummeting down in this tiny cage. It really gives you a sobering sense of just how difficult and dangerous this work was.
