Jerome (Arizona)
| Jerome | |
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 Main Street by Jerome |
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| Location in Arizona | |
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| Basic data | |
| Foundation : | March 8, 1898 |
| State : | United States |
| State : | Arizona |
| County : | Yavapai County |
| Coordinates : | 34 ° 45 ′ N , 112 ° 7 ′ W |
| Time zone : | Mountain Standard Time ( UTC − 7 ) |
| Residents : | 343 (status: 2000) |
| Population density : | 190.6 inhabitants per km 2 |
| Area : | 1.8 km 2 (approx. 1 mi 2 ) of which 1.8 km 2 (approx. 1 mi 2 ) is land |
| Height : | 1548 m |
| Postal code : | 86331 |
| Area code : | +1 928 |
| FIPS : | 04-36290 |
| GNIS ID : | 0030522 |
 Abandoned houses at the Gold King Mine |
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Jerome is a city in Yavapai County in the US state of Arizona . Jerome has 343 inhabitants on an area of 16.5 km². The city is affected by Arizona State Route 89 and is about two hours north of Phoenix by car . Jerome State Historic Park is located in Jerome .
Namesake
Jerome was chartered on March 8, 1898 and named after Eugene Murray Jerome , a New York judge and investor who owned the rights to the mines , which he had exploited from 1883. Jerome was a cousin of Jennie Churchill and is therefore closely related to Winston Churchill , who later became Prime Minister of England.
history
Jerome was a small excavation site of the local Yavapai . The Spaniards were the first Europeans to explore the Verde Valley in 1582/83. Antonio de Espejo and a group of conquistadors came through the area looking for " El Cibola " (the mystical seven cities of gold). Locals showed them a place where they mined copper for their jewelry, which later became known as Cleopatra Hill. 1598 gold prospecting Spaniards were led by " Marcos Farfan de Los Godos " in the area. 22 years later, even Jesuit priests visited the pits. In 1720 the Spaniards came back. They worked the pits for a few years until they were driven out by the Indians. Their studs and tools were found by American prospectors a century later .
Gold was discovered near Prescott in 1863 and the country was inundated by American prospectors and miners. Bloody battles and massacres ensued and continued until General George Crook subjugated the Yavapai in the winter of 1872/1873. The Yavapai was relocated to the Camp Verde Reserve and later to the San Carlos Reserve .
In 1875 the famous army scout Al Sieber roamed the Verde Valley on his exploratory rides. When he the old mines on the side of Cleopatra Hill in the Mingus Mountain saw it, he realized that they had potential and was in 1876 his claim ( Claim Enter). It wasn't long before other treasure hunters followed his route. Angus McKinnon and MA Ruffner fixed their claims shortly afterwards. Another treasure hunter was Nora "Butter" Brown, an enterprising woman who opened the first brothel in Jerome .
In 1883 agents on behalf of Eugene Murray Jerome bought the three discoverers their rights to the claims for $ 15,500. The future Senator from Montana , William A. Clark , leased the mining rights in 1888, a year later he bought the claim completely and founded the United Verde Copper Company . The United Verde Mine eventually produced over a billion dollars in copper, gold and silver.
Little Daisy Mine
In 1912/1913 "Rawhide" Jimmy Douglas founded the Little Daisy Mine as the new king of the mines .
Douglas built a huge mansion and hotel (Little Daisy Hotel) for his family in 1916 to accommodate wealthy investors and customers. The mansion became part of the Jerome State Historic Park.
However, mining resulted in countless landslides. In 1918 a fire destroyed 22 miles of mine shafts. Then they tried to clear the mine shafts with dynamite . The explosions often caused small earthquakes.
The peak of copper mining and profits was in 1929. When the price of copper fell to five cents a pound in 1935, Phelps Dodge bought the mine for $ 21 million. Only three years later (1938) the Little Daisy Mine (the second main mine) was closed due to declining profits and also as a result of the Great Depression .
But in 1953 the last copper mine in Jerome, the Phelps Dodge Mine, closed . At the end of the 1950s, around 50 people still lived in what was once a large city. In its prime in 1929, Jerome had a population of 15,000, a hospital, school, high school, clubhouse, over 12 brothels, and nearly 100 saloons .
National park
The mine and its surroundings have been placed under protection as Jerome State Historic Park . Artists came to the area in the 1970s and tourists over the next decade. In 2009, the park was closed for cost reasons, despite bringing in around $ 7 million a year.
literature
- James E. Sherman, Barbara H. Sherman: Ghost Towns of Arizona , UNI. OF OKLAHOMA PRESS, 1969, ISBN 0806108436
- Midge Steuber, Jerome Historical Society Archives: Jerome (Images of America: Arizona) , Arcadia Publishing, 2008, ISBN 0738558826
- Kate Ruland Thorne, Jeanette Rodda, Nancy R. Smit: Experience Jerome: The Moguls, Miners, and Mistresses of Cleopatra Hill , Primer Publishers, 2005, ISBN 0935810773
Web links
- Tourist Information
- Chamber of Commerce
- Jerome, the old mining town
- Jerome - Copper Queen on the Hill; Legends of America
- Picture collection around Jerome
- Grandhotel History , Hospital and Hotel , "Visualtour"
Individual evidence
- ↑ March 8, 1898
- ↑ Jerome-Churchill ( Memento of the original from August 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Verde River is a tributary of the Salt River (Gila River)
- ↑ CAPTAIN FARFAN AND HIS FORGOTTEN TRAIL
- ↑ the Yavapai were completely defeated by General George Crook in the fall and winter of 1872-1873.
- ↑ Discovered 1875. Started about 1876. First produced 1883 .
- ↑ In 1876, the famous Army scout Al Sieber filed a claim ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Google Books: Ghost Towns of Arizona, page 81
- ↑ Nora Brown (Eng.)
- ↑ Eugene Murray Jerome himself never entered the city or his mine
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↑ United Verde Mine (The Big Hole; Big Hole property; Hull Mine; Hopewell tunnel;
Patented claim 3480; Patented claim 2812; (presumably Al Sieber's Claim) ; Patented claims 3348), Jerome, Verde District, Black Hills (Black Hill Range ), Yavapai Co., Arizona, USA -
↑ The production was (1880-1930): 20,314,000 tons of ore.
The ore was extracted: 1,959,098,900 pounds of copper (888,632.31 tons), 1,009,800 ounces . Gold (28,627.348 kg) and 34,586,000 ounces of silver (980,496.606 kg) (see mindat.org ). - ↑ Douglas founded the Little Daisy Mine in 1912
- ↑ Picture of the hotel and the mine and another picture ( memento of the original from December 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ (1985): Ghost towns, gamblers & gold, Gallery books, New York
